Chocolate and Vanilla just work together
by Kuugen the Fox
Summary: Nene realizes what she truly wants to do with her life and chases after both her dreams and someone she likes.
1. Chapter 1

**This work is the result of the monthly poll on my Pa-treon. There are no plans for a part 2 currently but another vote could make that happen.**

* * *

 **26 Months after the release of Fairies Story 3**

As usual, Aoba was in quite early, one of the first to come in. Carrying two plastic cups of coffee, neither of them for herself, from the nearby coffee shop with her, she stepped into the elevator. And to her surprise, someone else was already there. A short, blonde girl, whose face she couldn't make out because it was hidden behind a dozen papers she was flipping through, back and forth.

 _Oh, that's right. They're bringing in the debuggers today. If I tell Nene about this on the phone tonight she'll probably complain that we switched from part-timers to contractors_. Aoba yawned very quietly and softly. Yagami had explained to her that even though they were called _professional_ debuggers it was really just a company full of people with experience as debuggers and some specialized knowledge. The only real difference between them and a part-timer was the experience and that they were paid the same way any ordinary employee was.

"Morning, Aocchi."

"Morning, Nenecchi." Aoba just stood there, processing her response for a moment before she flung around. "Nenecchi?!"

"Surprised?" Nene smirked wide. "I'm back!"

"Nene, you can't just come and visit me at work pretending to be an employee." Aoba had been very busy over the last two years and so had Nene. She didn't know what **exactly** Nene was doing now, because she always changed the topic when she asked but she was still attending college.

"How rude!" Pulling out an employee tag, Nene proudly held it up. "I'm one of the debuggers from _Validated Code_."

"What?!" Aoba couldn't make head or tails of what was happening. "How? Since when?!" But before she could get an answer, the elevator came to a halt and the two girls stepped outside.

"I'll tell you over lunch break." Nene was quite annoyed with the shocked face that Aoba made. "What?!"

"To think you would act like a real employee..." Aoba looked like she was near tears.

"Aocchi..." Nene was a little appalled by the way she being was treated. But when she thought about all her wandering around during the last time she had been there, it kind of made sense.

Stepping inside the offices, Nene took a quick look around. "Is the programmer's office still down there?" Pointing in the direction of her old workspace, Nene didn't want to be caught wandering around first thing after she came back.

"Yes." Aoba simply confirmed and went to do the first thing her job entailed. Waking up Kou and Rin. The latter had adopted the terrible habit of staying over and it was pretty much an open secret why. The coffee was for those two.

Heading towards the programmer's office, Nene looked through the documents again. She had busted her ass over those last 2 years. A couple weeks after the release of Fairies 3, she had figured out that she had never really enjoyed any part-time job more than this one. And enjoying the work was only half of the reason she had changed her career path so much. Looking giddy as she turned around the corner she found none of the programmers were in yet. It put a serious damper on her mood. "I guess I'll set up."

Putting the documents down, which detailed schedules, priority areas for testing and other things including a list of hired debuggers and their experience. Walking over to the part of the office that was still assigned to testers, she could tell because there were small desks with PCs everywhere, Nene got under the table and started unplugging one of the PCs. Carrying the desktop as well as some cables over first, she had to make four trips to get everything, including the console.

Getting back under the desk, Umiko's desk, to hook things up, Nene felt two piercing eyes on her back and she froze. She had missed this piercing gaze.

"Are you from tech? I wasn't notified of any new hire in the programming department." Umiko's voice reached Nene loud and clear.

Lowering the pitch of her voice was much as possible, Nene just reached out with her hand. She was on all fours, her head and face hidden beneath the table. "Can you give me the HDMI connector cable?"

Umiko grabbed the cable from the table and passed it in the hand of the girl below. She then noticed the bundle of papers. _These are the instructions that were sent to the debuggers_. Flipping to the last page, Umiko saw the employee list and her eyes narrowed. Things immediately became clear to her.

"Is there an USB connector on the table? I think I might have forgotten to bring it." Nene reached out again, still eager to keep up the charade but when no reply came, she started to sweat a little. Staring at the back of the PC under the table, Nene slightly turned her head and saw right into Umiko's eyes, who had gotten under the table herself.

"Sakura-san. What in the world are you doing?" Umiko was surprised to see the girl but she was even more surprised to see her occupy part of her desk.

Nene started four different words and finished none. _This isn't how I imagined this to go!_ "I'm one of the debuggers, and-" Nene tried to get out from under the table and hit her head. Rubbing her scalp, Nene stood up.

"I saw the employee list. I am asking, why are you setting up a testing station on my desk." Umiko crawled out from beneath the table as well. "Debuggers are supposed to stay in their assigned area."

" **But**..." Nene puffed up her cheeks as much as she could. "We worked together like this the last time, so I thought..."

"I did that to keep an eye on you because you kept wandering off." Seeing how badly Sakura was taking it, Umiko started to feel bad. "Well, it is true that it was helpful to have a tester right next to me, but still, you can't just-"

"Give me a chance! I worked really hard on getting this job because I wanted to work with you again!" Nene blurted out and immediately froze again. "No, I mean, yes, well, not entirely, I mean, I wanted to come back here, and you, err-" Nene's face was turning as red as the error text on Umiko's programming console did occasionally.

And she wasn't the only one that was embarrassed. _This girl always just blurts out what she thinks._ "How did you even get hired? Two and a half months of debugging work here at Eaglejump shouldn't suffice to be hired as a professional."

"I… might have kinda changed what I do at university. I focused on any programming class I could get my hands on." Nene started to whistle. She hadn't told Aoba about this because she was absolutely sure Aoba would tell her it was a bad idea to change her focus like that. "I really liked working here. And the other places I part-timed at were also pretty nice."

Umiko picked up the pile of documents again and flipped to the last pages, that listed a small photo of the employee, their name, experience and special skills. "C++, Java, python, Unity…" Umiko took a deep breath and put the documents back down. "Sakura-san. Lying on a resume is a criminal offense. You will not only be fired when you're found out, your employer might also press charges."

"How rude! Give me your current build and I'll show you!" Nene grabbed all the remaining cables, dived back under the table and set up the remaining connections.

"First, you can't just move your own workspace next to me without my permission. Second, you-" Umiko gave up because Sakura was not listening anymore. It would be much easier to get her to admit everything and give up, before things got really problematic, if she just put her to the test. "Use your login credentials to access the server and get the current build. Floor staff no longer takes care of that for you."

Powering on her computer and sitting down, Nene quickly opened the browser, entered the FTP server address, her login credentials and then started to pull the current build from the server. It didn't take her longer than 60 seconds to do this. Umiko sat down in her own chair and felt a little nostalgic for when crunch time had come for Fairies 3. _She was a really great help, all things considered. But lying on her resume is not something I can tolerate. She got herself hired under false pretenses._ Umiko waited for her own station to fully boot up and load everything from startup. _I think she got even cuter than before though_.

With people like Suzukaze and Takimoto, or more prominently, Yagami and Tooyama, it wasn't really that surprising that she had heightened senses for this sort of thing. She wasn't really predisposed in either direction, mostly because her job and her hobby didn't leave any time for it.

Waiting for the download to finish, Nene pulled an empty bullet shell out of her pocket and put it on the table. It was a gift from Umiko and she had kept it with her whenever possible. She had gotten in trouble that one time when she went out to drink with her much older seniors at the company, they ended up drunk and the police found the shell on her.

Umiko just acknowledged that Sakura still had the shell by looking a little happy and smiling about it. Adjusting the window positions of her own tools, Umiko got back up. "I am going to get myself some coffee." She didn't think to offer any to Sakura because she didn't want to raise her expectations of being able to stay just because they knew each other.

Standing in the kitchen, Umiko felt a little tired already. Not from work or from lack of caffeine but because she hadn't expected to ever see Sakura again. She was a little attached to her from the time they worked together. And now that the spin-off game, with Sophia from Fairies 3 as the main character in a dungeon crawler, was nearing completion, Sakura had showed up again.

 _Well, she won't be around for long. I'll ask her to quit quietly so nobody gets wind of her lies. I can do that much I suppose._ Returning with her coffee, Umiko found the debugger sitting in front of a blue screen. "Sakura-san. What did you do?" To crash a PC like that was quite a feat.

"You have a memory leak in the build. Each time you load up the config from the main menu and change the resolution or graphic options, it updates in real time and loads in the new settings but it doesn't unload the old ones. I only changed the settings about 40 times before the memory leak had eaten the entire RAM of the PC. Trying to start a new game after that, causes the PC to do that. On console I expect it would be even worse. I'm pretty sure you only hooked a sub routine into the update process and the sub routine just gets stuck at some point, so assets don't unload right."

Umiko just stood there without any real expression. That was not the kind of talk that she expected to hear from **Sakura**. _Is that true?_ Putting her coffee aside, Umiko quickly navigated to the responsible code and sure enough, there was an extra parenthesis in the exact logic that Sakura had talked about, causing the whole thing to fail. "How did you know that?"

"Geez, I told you I didn't lie about my qualifications! I worked really, really hard!" Nene blushed. "I figured that if I can do at least this much, you won't force me back in with all the other debuggers." Nene was really intend on working with Umiko again. And not just **with** but **side by side**. She was a long cry from being any kind of real programmer but she could diagnose most errors with way greater specification than _I ran there, it suddenly froze_.

"Sakura-san. Even if you are as good as you claim, you're not a part-timer. You have company policy to follow and so do I."

"But I cleared this with my section chief already." Nene procured a folded piece of paper from her pocket. "I told him that since I worked here before and very closely-" Nene was interrupted when Umiko just took the paper from her.

 _Due to my previous experience at Eaglejump, working in close relation with their beautiful lead programmers, one Ahagon Umiko-san, I request that I be granted special permission to work outside the designated debugging area at Eaglejump upon agreement by our contractor. A list of situations that would benefit from this arrangement are attached at the bottom of this document._ Umiko read through it. It was a well written letter but there was just one word that stuck out like a sore thumb. _Beautiful_. Her looks had absolutely nothing to do with programming. But it did make it seem like Sakura had ulterior motives for working with her again.

"Fine." Umiko saw herself beat. If Sakura really was qualified **and** her gotten prior permission from her own boss, she didn't really see any reason to kick her out, back to where the other debuggers worked.

"Yes!" Nene hissed and made a fist. "I'll get started right away." Restarting her PC, Nene couldn't wait to get to work. "The game is called Sophia-chan's Great Magical Adventure, so I was wondering. Did Aocchi make Sophia's model this time too?"

"Yes." Umiko was not the talkative type when working and she wished Sakura had already picked up on that. And to her surprise, the moment she booted up the game, the childish, immature Sakura Nene disappeared and a focused debugger appeared, as if through real magic.

Both of their co-workers came in soon after. Nene didn't need to introduce herself to the other programmers, they still remembered her. And they were throwing knowing and dirty looks at Umiko, who fired at them with her softgun, telling them to get to work.

When lunch time came, Nene looked with distress at the notepad she had filled. _Inventory overflow, missing a parameter to cap maximum value. Softlock if start is pressed in the same frame as an encounter happens. Fireball attack learned at 33 has wrong element affinity, element ID is E instead of 3. Returning multiple times to the same floor in a row from the floor selection causes the floor to duplicate, routine is not unloading previous floor properly if ID of old and new floor match. Stacking same ID buffs…_ the list went on for a while.

"What are you… doing for lunch?" She had already forgotten about her promise to Aoba. She was also a little cautious about talking to Umiko because she was looking very, very irritated. A lot of the buggy code had not come directly from her but from one of her co-workers.

"I appreciate the offer but I am already behind schedule due to fixing all of this, so please go on without me." Umiko reached for her coffee and stopped when she remembered that she had already finished it earlier.

"I'll see you in a bit then." Nene got out of her chair, stretched her arms and walked away. She let out a long sigh the moment she was out of earshot range. "I guess this won't be easy."

"Nene?!" A familiar voice spoke to her and Nene looked to the side, noticing two of Aoba's coworkers.

"Yo!" Nene put on a smile and raised her hand. "Good to see both of you again!"

"That Aoba, she didn't tell us you were back in..." Yun cursed under her breath.

"I thought we weren't hiring part timers anymore." Hajime could see Nene's employee tag and wondered if they made an exception because Aoba was the one that had designed the lead character.

"Everyone's so rude to me! I'm here with all the other debuggers!" Nene puffed up her cheeks and tried to look as proud as possible. "Aocchi, Umiko, you two, everyone thinks I just sneaked in or something!"

"Well, that does sound like something you would do." Hajime grinned and her grin immediately vanished when Nene started to looked really pissed.

"I can do my job as good as any of the others, I'll show you!" Nene shouted.

" **Sa~ku~ra-san.** " Umiko pointed one of her guns at the back of Nene's head from point blank range. Nene froze and looked like she was caught in the middle of robbing the national reserves. "Taking a break is **fine** and it is company policy to ensure that employees take breaks but cease shouting over the entire floor if you would."

"I'm sorry!" Shouting her apology, she noticed too late what she was doing and quickly made a mad dash towards the door.

Umiko returned to her desk. Grabbing the cup of coffee, a large plastic cup with a straw, Umiko nearly dropped it when it was unexpectedly heavy. Opening the lid, there was still hot coffee inside. _I'm sure I actually drank this a while ago_. Noticing a piece of paper that had slipped out beneath the cup, Umiko only found a stylized head of Nene with starry eyes and a thumbs up. The words _Do your best_ were written on it. _I sure hope this is not going to end badly. It is so obvious that she has developed a crush on me_. Umiko did really think that Sakura was cute but they were several years apart in age and they had, other than their jobs, absolutely nothing in common.

Yun and Hajime caught up with Nene just outside the office. Initially aiming to go to the cafeteria, Nene had instead opted to get some fresh air. "Hey, Nene, wait up!" Hajime called out and quickly made it over to the debugger. "I need the whole story!"

"Of what?"

"How you're working here of course! And don't tell me it has nothing to do with Aoba and Umiko working here." Hajime was really curious about this.

"Yeah, we need all the details." Yun was no less interested.

Coming to Nene's help was her own stomach that let out a loud growl. Laughing awkwardly, Nene looked around to see if there was anything nearby where they could eat. But Yun knew better. "There is a really good gyros place nearby. They have a discount running for purchases of 3 or more right now!"

And so, within roughly ten minutes, the three girls were stuffing their face with some Greek food. "Now, spit it out. The story I mean." Hajime was burning up with anticipation.

"During the release party, Umiko told me that they won't be hiring part-timers anymore for debugging. And… I really liked working at Eaglejump and on Fairies 3. She gave me her number and said to call her if I needed anything so I asked her to introduce me to some other opportunities for debugging work. And I decided right there and then to make that into my job!"

"I knew we were hiring debuggers from a company but I didn't know it was some kind of professional job." Yun was surprised there was enough demand for something like that. Debugging was important but it only made up a small part of game development, mostly towards the end.

"It's all about experience and knowing a bit about programming." Nene spoke with her mouth full and only barely avoided sending a piece of lettuce flying.

"You? Programming?" Hajime coughed a little as some of the gyros went down her throat too quickly.

"I worked part-time between classes. I dropped most classes and only focused on any programming course I could get my hands on. Man, you should see my grades, they're terrible." Nene laughed while both her co-workers made strange faces. "It's fine! The oldest person at our company is 65 and he's been in this business ever since the PES days! He knows a **lot** about games and he actually gets requested directly by developers a lot so he is paid really well. So this is definitely something I can do!"

"You say you liked working at Eaglejump but if that was all you wouldn't set up next to Umiko." Yun smelled something saucy. There was more to this than Nene let on.

"Don't say that Yun! It was so funny when she thought it wasn't obvious!" Hajime cautiously pulled in her feet in case Yun decided to be angry.

"Am I… that obvious?" Nene blushed like a fire had broken out on her face. Putting her fingers together, she looked really embarrassed for a moment. "But that's fine, if I want to woo her, I can't be discouraged by people looking at me strange! They don't look strange at their gun otaku chief programmer either!"

"They kinda do. A lot." Hajime pointed out. "But you really don't need to worry about that. Yagami and Tooyama are totally together and nobody says a thing. It's **super** obvious but everyone pretends they can't see it."

"Hajime!" Yun complained and laughed. "Best of luck to you Nene, you'll definitely need it." Getting out of her seat, Yun was about to head back.

"Don't you still have like 20 minutes of break left?" Nene asked.

"Well, yeah, but we're kinda behind schedule. Again. I don't think we'll be going home for a few days. There was a problem with one of the servers and we got rolled back a few days." Yun groaned. "Hajime, you coming?"

The brunette got out of her seat and waved to Nene. "I'm not behind with work but I got enough left to do anyway."

As the two lined up to pay, they found Nene, with the remainder of her gyros stuffed all into her mouth at once, right behind them. She looked like an adorable hamster. She didn't want to stay behind alone.

Back at the office, Umiko was taking a short break at her desk while code was compiling on her computer. "I have to say that I was very skeptical at first, but I also have to admit that you are so far the best debugger I have ever worked with. Half the work is finding the issue so having a debugger that can make at least an educated guess is a tremendous help." Umiko knew just how well Sakura responded to praise. "Please continue your work in this manner until the last day."

Nene's face lit up as she was being praised. "Of course! I'll show you the full extent of my power!" Sitting down, Nene tried to move her character in-game and nothing happened. Bringing up the debug console, something that was useless for most debuggers despite the name, she scrolled up and up until she found an issue. "Umiko-san… it looks like we have a problem."

Umiko was looking at the debug log from the side and she gasped for air when she saw the error that Nene had singled out. A fatal error that popped up when resetting animation circles for Sophia's idle. One of the animations was broken and that caused the whole loop to fail which then ended up freezing the game completely. With a few quick moves, Umiko had grabbed a clip board and was about to storm out of her booth, but not before slamming the print key on Nene's keyboard, printing the selected error log.

Nene followed, not sure how to feel about this. She had found this problem by accident since she had just let the game continue to run while going for a break. But if any player did something similar, the game would lock up on them and due to the very nature of debugging, playing constantly, it was unlikely that the bug would be found. Pushing day 1 or day 2 patches was terrible PR.

"Shinoda-san." Umiko put the error log down on Hajime's desk. "One of your animations is causing an error that results in a hardlock." _Hardlock_ was an industry term that referred to the game becoming entirely unresponsive, freezing up completely. On a console, the entire console had to be reset for that. For anyone working in development, it was among the top of the list of words you never wanted to hear, much less that you were responsible.

"Eh, what?!" Hajime was surprised to hear that. She rarely got any complaints because she usually did a pretty good job.

Nene waved to Aoba, who happened to look because Umiko showing up was always a worrisome thing. "Hi, Aocchi." Nene whispered from behind Umiko and Aoba waved back before returning to work.

"Which animation is it?" Hajime pulled up a big list of all the animations she did. Because she had worked with Aoba, who designed Sophia, she had gotten to do all her animations.

"One of her idle ones." Nene popped out behind Umiko.

"Seriously? Ugh." Hajime opened up the first idle animation and put her tools in full diagnostic mode. It wasn't always clear if an animation was corrupt just from looking at it.

"Sakura-san. You are still on the clock, so please return to your desk." Umiko left the printed error with Hajime. "I need to tell the chief debugger that all but one debugger need to avoid the idle animation cycles, so please go back ahead of me."

"You already told her." Nene looked proud.

" **You** are the chief debugger?" Umiko didn't know whether she was supposed to be relieved or irritated.

"Well, because I already worked here before **and** I know a lot about the fairies series **and** because I asked to be." Nene didn't want to tell Umiko that she had literally begged her boss to take that position. "I'll go tell the others."

There was collective giggling and whispering as Nene took off. Whispers and giggles that immediately vanished when Umiko turned around, stared and then took off herself.

It was past six when Hajime **finally** found the erroneous animation and the build was updated with it. Nene hadn't found anything else really significant after telling everyone about the broken animation. When Umiko checked the clock she saw that Nene was supposed to have clocked out forty minutes ago. "Sakura-san, the company is not going to be able to pay you for voluntary overtime."

"I did clock out. I'm just here because you're still here." Nene figured that if she wanted a real shot at this, she had to be aggressive. Like Rambo! It was the closest guns thing, next to a Terminator, that she could think of.

Umiko paused typing her code and just hit a quick shortcut to make the code compile for now. She had to address this issue before it got out of hand. "Sakura-san, if your goal to work here was only because you have developed a crush on me, you should go back to the other debuggers. At work, I work. I won't have time for long glances and hand holding the way **some** individuals do." Umiko was thinking of Yagami, who **still** refused to not use her last name.

"I know. That's why I'm still here." Talking to one NPC repeatedly, many more times than it had cycles for dialogue, Nene found a minor glitch and wrote it down. "Work is work, but~… after you get off work, I'd like to go for a drink." Nene was over 20, so she could legally drink now.

Umiko hadn't expected any kind of professionalism from Sakura and still there it was. And she certainly seemed to have grown up just a little.

Nene really hadn't grown up at all. She was trying her absolute best to appear **cool** and collected but her heart was beating so fast that she thought **she herself** was going to have a blue screen any second now.

"I cannot leave until I compiled the remaining code into the new build and pushed it to the server." Umiko didn't outright say **no** because she had no reason to. If Sakura really was capable of keeping work as just work, and she owed it to Sakura to give her a chance at that after unjustly suspecting her of faking her resume, there really was no greater reason to not go for drinks with a co-worker. Even if it was blindingly obvious what her intentions were. Umiko had been around Tooyama for too long to not see the signs.

"And because I know that I am still here! Isn't my perseverance almost like that of Buddha?!" Nene looked proud and raised her chin.

The other programmers had already gone home and Umiko was busy with the code. Even though debugging ate up a lot of time for the coders, they still had other work to do. It was past 9 and Nene was just watching Umiko work now. Her mind couldn't process any more gaming on this first day.

The things Umiko did were far above Nene's knowledge level but she was just relaxing by watching anyway. She only realized then, that apparently, she had a date coming up. And she was just wearing totally normal clothes. Starting to get seriously nervous, Nene wondered if she could make it back home and back in time but she already knew that was totally impossible. And there was another big issues. What would she even **say** during their date? Was it even a date? Was getting drinks with a co-worker a date? Maybe it was in their specific circumstances. _Why is this so confusing! Debugging isn't this hard!_

At 9:30, Umiko was finally done. All that was left to do was wait for the code to compile properly, if she hadn't messed up anywhere, and push it on the server. Nene had taken a walk around the office earlier, but most people had already gone home. "What makes you think I even prefer women?" Umiko was not really bothered by shame. Unless it was her last name. She still wasn't over that.

 _I can't tell her it's because I asked Yagami-san and she said she's never had a boyfriend in her life_. Nene thought and just lied. "Even if you don't, I still like this job so no regrets! None!" She immediately regretted not saying something more cool, something that would really impress Umiko.

But she had already done so. "Well. If you can do your job every day as well as you did today I might consider accepting a date." Umiko knew very well how to push someone's buttons. And after everything was said and done, Sakura had come back **after** constantly being scolded, reprimanded and watched. And she was cute. Taking a closer look, Umiko thought that maybe _cute_ only applied because of her behavior and clothes. With a different attitude and some better clothes, she might even pass as _sexy_.

"So are we going to get a drink?" Nene looked very enthusiastic now.

"There are a few things I would like you specifically to test for me over the next two weeks. As long as you are fine with talking about those, I will get a drink with you instead of going to my airsoft field." Umiko had never really given dating any real chance because she liked her job and she wanted to be even better at it. And her hobby ate quite a lot of money and time as well. Unless she would date someone that could join in on both occasions, she wouldn't really have the time.

And so, about sixty minutes later, they sat in one of Umiko's favorite bars, ordering drinks. Japanese alcohol was quite different from what they served in the west so it was easy to drink even for Nene. Sitting next to each other, Umiko didn't want to launch back into work immediately. "What is it that you like about me?"

Nene froze. "W-Well, you're pretty cool. The thing with the guns is a little scary at first but after I looked it up online, it actually looks pretty amazing. You're also super hot!" Nene covered her mouth. "I mean you're really beautiful and-" She stopped when Umiko started to laugh. This was the first time that Nene could remember that she had seen her laugh.

"In most cases blurting out what you think would not be considered a virtue but I believe it suits you well, Sakura-san. But why change your entire career plan, just to ask me out?" Umiko wanted to hear about her choices in more detail, to make sure this wasn't just a youthful crush gone too far.

"I really loved my time working at Eaglejump. Video games are never going to go away and since they get bigger and bigger, debuggers will always be needed. So don't treat me like a child!" Puffing up her cheeks had almost become a habit. She did it every time someone upset her. "It's true I switched with someone from the group that went debugging for Pentendo. They pay a lot more and they have better connections, but there's no Ahago-" Nene covered her mouth in a panic.

Umiko punished Nene refilling her glass again. "Drink up. And I hope you have your ID on you. I don't want to get stopped by the police because it looks like I made an underage girl drink." Watching Nene chug her drink, Umiko was impressed. Not only because she could drink alcohol just fine but because she didn't seem displeased by the taste at all. A stark contrast from that time she tried that demon lord frog energy drink.

"You will never guess what I spent my most recent paycheck on." Nene lived on her own and she was actually doing very well for herself, considering her age and qualifications.

 _If she is bragging about it, it must be something that is supposed to impress me._ Umiko felt it wasn't so bad to receive all that attention from someone that had pretty much already admitted to having a crush on her. "I cannot possibly imagine." Umiko didn't make much of an attempt to pretend she cared that much.

Nene pulled out her cellphone and brought up a photo of a girl in full protective gear, wielding two handguns. "Tada! It took a lot of sessions for me to get used to it, but it's actually kinda fun to bully other players by firing at them!" Laughing in a childish and mean way, Nene made Umiko's face light up. _This is it! This is the reaction I wanted. It was so worth it spending all that money on the gear, guns and training!_

"You've started playing airsoft? What kind of field do you like? Are those handguns your personal ones? How many sessions did you do?" Umiko got very passionate about her hobby, even with people that only showed passing interest. And now Sakura-san had even bought her own equipment and taken up airsoft for her? Umiko was swayed between being moved and being worried but she decided to go with being moved instead.

"I don't really like the muddy kind and rain kinda sucks. Yeah, those are mine. I actually wanted one of those big guns you have but they are **so** expensive and the shop clerk said that someone short and quick like me should focus on lighter weapons and I didn't want to drag you down when we kick everyone's ass, so I kinda listened." Nene was really happy her efforts were paying off. It had been a long road.

When she had just gone back to college, she hadn't really thought about Umiko that much. But once every day life settled back in, she started to miss the work. Classes were boring and really uninteresting compared to debugging, even though the latter was far more tedious most of the time. She also missed Aocchi and as she thought about her, she also started to miss Umiko.

Recalling that moment at the party, she still had that card on her desk. As the days passed, she realized that working in the game industry had been the best time of her life, at least outside parties and the likes. And as much as Umiko scolded and scared her, she ended up thinking about her more and more. The cool demeanor, her professionalism. Before Nene knew what was happening, her friends at college were asking her if there was a boy she liked because she looked lovestruck. They took it with relative indifference when Nene just blurted out that she thought she had a crush on her female boss from her part-time gig.

Calling Umiko a few days after that, asking her where she could go for other debugging work, Nene realized that her feelings weren't gonna go away so she might as well be a proper adult and pursue her feelings. Unlike Aocchi, who just kept throwing herself into work.

From there, one thing had lead to another, eventually resulting in this; talking with an excited Umiko about her airsoft experiences and having drinks together. It was almost midnight when they left. Nene was completely drunk, past the point of giggling like a girl and talking to phone poles. Umiko kept refilling her glass almost on instinct because they had a good time but she now saw that making someone, who was clearly not used to that much alcohol, drink so much was very immature and careless of her.

Taking responsibility for her carelessness resulted in Nene waking up on an unfamiliar couch, in an unfamiliar apartment. _H-Have I been kidnapped? A cute, smart, beautiful, grown up lady like myself, kidnapped?!_ Or so Nene thought before she noticed the numerous weapons and survival clothes all over the place. _Oh, this has to be Umiko's place then._ There was a moment where no thoughts at all were in Nene's head. _**Umiko's place?!**_

Umiko peeked out of the bathroom, already dressed and brushing her teeth, when she heard a loud thud and something not quite heavy hit the ground. "We are going to be late for work. I have disposable brushes in my cabinet, please take one and get ready. I do not have a change of clothes for you so please make plentiful use of the deodorant I left on the table for you."

"D-D-D-D-Did we-" Nene was so hyper that she wasn't thinking straight

"We had drinks together and I carelessly got you too drunk to send you home. You spent the night on my couch."

"B-B-But what am I gonna tell everyone at work?!" Showing up together, with the same clothes she wore the day before, that was gonna raise all sorts of flags with people. "I'm not mentally prepared!"

" **Sakura-san**." Umiko noticed, with great pleasure, that calling out her name like that was still very effective. "Please get ready for work. Yagami wears the same clothes so often that nobody is going to even notice that your clothes did not change from yesterday."

"Sir, yes, sir!" Nene saluted and put her feet together as a joke. She won a smile from Umiko, which made this instantly the best morning she had in years. Taking off her shirt in the middle of the living room, Nene grabbed the deodorant bottle and got rest of as much of the bar, alcohol and sweat smell as she could.

Umiko was leaned back just a little too much to not be suspicious, glancing into the living room where Sakura stood in just a skirt and bra. _They're surprisingly big_. Umiko had never really paid one iota of attention to Sakura's physique before, but now that she was so very much aware that the girl had a crush on her, she was kinda interested.

Nene was absolutely oblivious to this development though. Putting her shirt back on, Nene felt the smell come back. Taking it back off and spraying the shirt itself pretty intensely, Nene could hear the bathroom door close. "Umiko-san?"

The toilet was flushed a moment later. About a minute after that, Umiko came out of the bathroom. "Please hurry." Umiko returned to her bedroom to gather her things. Her employee tag, keys, wallet and so forth. Nene looked around the somewhat spartan bathroom as she brushed her teeth with a really simple brush. Nene wondered for a moment why Umiko kept disposable brushes in her cabinet but then she realized that they had to be for longer survival game sessions. A bottle of water, toothpaste and a brush was all someone really needed to not breathe their teammates to death out there.

"Sakura-san." It didn't sound the same way it usually did.

Frantically waving out of the bathroom, Nene signaled for Umiko to wait a little longer. She was pretty good about hygiene, normally at least. _I can't wait to brag to Aocchi about spending the night with Umiko!_

"Nene-san. Just finish, we need to go. Traffic will be terrible if we wait any longer and coming in late together will most likely end with Hazuki-san annoying us for months." Umiko had not the best of relationships with her boss.

 _N-Nene-san?_ The girl's face was like a living Christmas decoration, going from bright shine to crimson red in regular intervals. Quickly cleaning her mouth, Nene headed towards the door.

"Sakura-san, your tag." Umiko was quickly back to calling the girl by her last name. Spoiling her wouldn't do any good. And after Nene quickly dashed to the table and then out the door that Umiko held open, the two women almost raced towards Umiko's car.

 **5 weeks later**

Nene could not feel her legs or arms. She wasn't outright terrible at airsoft, but compared to Umiko, she might as well have been. They were 9:6 on matches won and lost. And for today, they were done. "Sakura-san, can you stand?" Umiko still called her that. Occasionally she rewarded the girl by calling her by her first name but she found that doing so was best reserved for the special occasion.

"I don't think so." Nene didn't even want to try. She had been running around, doing her best, so much that she just fell over the second the match had finished.

"Well, it appears I have no other choice then." Putting her gun away, strapped to her back now, Umiko first holstered Nene's guns before she picked her up. But instead of doing a princess carry, she did it like a soldier would, putting Nene over her shoulder.

 _At least I have a nice view of her butt from here_ , Nene thought and smirked. And to make it even better, she didn't have to walk.

"You fought bravely today, Sakura-san." Umiko was quite glad with how things had went. Winning 9 out of 15 matches was below her acceptable threshold for solo matches but as a team, that was quite good. And she could see that Sakura really put in the effort required.

Arriving back at the tents, other teams were already taking off their gear, ready to go home and take a nice shower to wash off the dirt and sweat. Far above them were thick, black clouds, ready to provide said shower free of charge. "I wish we could go and see a movie or something." Nene was disappointed. The workload had become absurd because of a last minute addition to the game and it was causing so many bugs all over the place, the debuggers were always clocking overtime, all of them, and on some days, Umiko and Nene didn't get to go home. It was just like that added panty shot function that Hazuki-san had wanted towards the end of the development cycle of Fairies 3. Just a hundred times more disruptive.

"The art department is under even more pressure than we are." Umiko took off her helmet and started to peel off her protectors. She wore just a tight sports bra beneath her uniform and since it was already getting dark she didn't really care about others seeing. Until she noticed Sakura's irritated expression, again with her puffed up cheeks. Before Umiko even realized what she was doing, she pulled the zipper of her uniform back up. That she cared about Sakura's mood so much came as a surprise. Not an unpleasant or pleasant one, just a surprise.

"Aocchi was calling me yesterday, telling me how they suddenly had to do over 2000 mini sprites to cover all the monsters, five sprites for each monster She called me **from work** because she hadn't really gone home in a while." Nene still talked to Aoba a lot. Around the office, Nene had become known as the one and a half debugger. Every time she found a bug she didn't understand, she carefully watched Umiko fix it and ask what the reason was. Slowly but surely she was understanding little by little how the game worked. However, she was still years away from being able to code anything herself.

"Our office is very lucky we have a public bath nearby." Umiko made use of that sometimes as well.

"Are you really going straight home? Do you want to stop at a bar?" Nene wanted to spend more time with Umiko outside of work.

"Do you remember what happened last week when we went to have drinks after this?" The woman with tan skin still remembered how sore and exhausted she had been the following day. It had been like torture. All because she indulged Sakura.

Nene made an uncomfortable face. "I do." In truth she just wanted to say _Let me stay at your place!_ But Umiko had already turned her down on that, saying that as long as they worked together, that was not going to happen unless extraordinary circumstances took place.

Pulling herself together, Nene put away her own stuff. She brought an extra backpack just for that reason. Umiko on the other hand brought a big duffle bag with her every time, since she favored larger guns and she brought multiple of those. "Are you dropping me off at my place?"

"Naturally." Umiko sometimes liked to tease her a little bit. "I would worry that you fall asleep on the train and end up somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Or that someone might steal you."

"How rude! I wouldn't fall asleep on the tr- Ah.." Nene remembered that one time where Aoba had counted on her to wake her up.

"You have improved since the last time. I was initially concerned you might become sick of partnering with me due to our difference in skill and experience, but you are getting better. I felt safe trusting my back to you." The brunette had a pretty good grasp on how Sakura worked. Staying strict with the occasional moment of praise or kindness worked really well to keep her both motivated and interested.

"The first few times I played I really didn't like it. All the getting dirty and constantly being hit by stuff sucked really bad. But it was kinda fun when I got quick enough to shoot people! Pew, pew!" Nene gestured with her hands since her guns were already put away,

 _I guess she is never going to outlive that childish personality. But it's kind of cute._ "It certainly is an acquired taste, much like alcohol. Do you have all your things?"

"I do." Nene picked up something from the ground. "But you lost your participation tag." It was just a number that was fixed on the clothes with a hairpin. But because Nene had been over at Umiko's place a handful of times now, mostly for survival game matters, she had found a cupboard with several albums, detailing every session, with the tag of each session glued into the books.

"Thank you." Umiko rewarded Sakura with a smile.

Leaving the grounds and heading to Umiko's car, Nene let out a yawn. Now that the adrenaline was gone and it was about to rain, she knew why it was a bad idea to try and do anything else, other than take a shower at home and crash into bed. The first drops of rain hit their hair just as they loaded their stuff into Umiko's car.

"I'm so pooped." Nene deflated in the passenger's seat and put on her seat belt. "But I had fun. Maybe we should invite Aocchi and her friends sometime."

"I have a distinct feeling that they would only be frustrated to join in at our level." Umiko smiled again. "You are not a beginner anymore, Sakura." Leaving off the honorific, Umiko was very, very slowly conditioning Sakura.

Just as the programmer started the car, the rain really started coming down. It was a thirty minute drive to Nene's apartment and just two minutes after they started, Nene was lightly snoring in her seat. The two of them couldn't agree on their music taste, so the radio stayed off when they drove to and back from the survival game field.

Umiko kept her yawning suppressed but she was fairly exhausted herself. She was genuinely impressed that Sakura kept up with her for the entire day. She wasn't the most accurate shot but her low height and happy go lucky demeanor made other players always underestimate her. Out of 24 kills between them, Nene had scored 8 of them.

The rain got even worse when Umiko took a corner and finally brought the car to a halt in front of Nene's apartment complex. "Sakura." There was no response. _Is she that fast asleep_? Umiko just sat there and turned the car off. With how energetic and out of control Sakura could be, she really liked this peaceful side of her.

The soft, pure lips of Sakura Nene slightly parted by her breathing, the 20 year old girl just sat there, deep asleep, in Umiko's passenger seat. She didn't notice at all then strands of brown her slowly moved over in her direction, one hand resting against the door, another against Sakura's seat. Umiko had spent enough time with her to become attracted to her. She hadn't planned on it, but she welcomed that it was happening to her. "Nene." Umiko whispered to the short girl, who still refused to wake up. Umiko's smile made way for a more sensual look as she focused on Nene's lips.

Leaning forward first, Umiko then pulled back for a second, only to move a golden strand of hair away from Nene's forehead so it wouldn't get in the way. Her own, brown hair tickling Nene's arms, Umiko let her own lips graze against Nene's, a fleeting kiss. She remained calm on the outside and the inside was not much different. Her heart beat a little faster but she knew that this was almost natural for her to do. Nene liked her and had said so on multiple occasions and she wasn't opposed to it at all.

A second kiss, no more grazing but real contact, Umiko felt an inner peace she otherwise only knew when she cleaned and maintained her guns. _This might be right for me after all_. Returning to a proper position in her seat, Umiko raised her voice. "Sakura-san!"

Nene suddenly rose in her seat. "Y-Yes?!" Half asleep, she responded to the summons.

"We're here. I don't have an umbrella to lend you, but you will be showering afterward either way. Do you need help getting your stuff?" Umiko pressed the button that unlocked the trunk of the car.

"Nah, 's just a backpack." Nene opened the door a tiny bit and licked her lips so they wouldn't dry out. And she thought there was a weird taste on them. _Did I forget to wash dirt off my face? Doesn't taste like dirt though._ Getting out of the car, running around the car to the back, grabbing her backpack from the trunk and making a mad dash towards her door, she quickly opened up, turned around and waved to Umiko, who was just now pulling the passenger door shut and waved back before restarting the engine.

As Umiko drove away and had to stop on a red light, she put her index finger to her lips. _Kissing a woman is better than I thought it would be._ Taking a turn and heading home, Umiko was not looking forward to work the next morning. Management sometimes got weird ideas about the schedule.

During lunch break the following day, Umiko was on her own because Nene was so busy testing out the limits of the new build and making sure the old bugs were all fixed that she didn't have time to take a break. They had added a monster capturing system to the game at last minute. They only displayed as small miniature versions in an extra area at the base, outside the dungeons, but each of them did a unique thing and she had to test **all** of them.

Eating by herself, Umiko saw a very exhausted looking Yagami and Tooyama couple arrive in the cafeteria as well. Spotting her, the woman with tan skin couldn't manage to make a scary expression in time. "Where is your mini me, Ahagon?" Yagami mocked the programmer.

"It's Umiko." She was already starting to be annoyed. "She's busy confirming the build is solid. What was Hazuki-san thinking, pushing something like this so far into the development cycle?"

"It was not actually Hazuki's fault. A few investors and some of our marketing affiliates really wanted this feature to be in because of the PokiminGO craze that is going on. They think it'll help sell a lot more copies and improve the longevity of the game." Rin explained. "I think most of our department went home yesterday for the first time in a week."

"It is causing all sorts of unexpected behavior in monster AI and movement patterns." Umiko could have kept complaining for a week straight. "I'm lucky to have a dedicated tester. I sometimes do smaller updates of compiled files and she tests them before I push them through the server to everyone else."

"You're getting pretty close with Nene, aren't you?" Kou had a dirty smirk on her face.

"Are you in any position to try and tease people about that?" Umiko looked first at Yagami and then at Tooyama. "Human resources is leaving you alone because you both do your work. You should fill out the HR form before it blows up in your faces." She didn't really have the patience to indulge their _We're totally not dating despite everyone knows but we don't know that_ comedy routine. "I have to get back to work." Finishing her lunch quickly, Umiko picked up coffee on her way out.

Suzukaze and her friends from the art department, looking like they hadn't really seen a day off in a while, walked past her, only saying hello in passing. Leaving one cup of coffee next to a burned out looking Sakura, Umiko sat down at her own desk. "And?"

"I found three that have minor bugs. It looks like just the sprite assignment is wrong. ID 272 suddenly turns into ID 271 when using the jumping animation. All three of them are off by one ID count." Reaching for the coffee, Nene felt really, really tired. "How many days off release are we again?"

"17 days. I don't think I'll be able to go anywhere with you until release date." Umiko enjoyed their little excursions together. On one hand, Sakura was a valued co-worker that was really shining in her work now. She caught sometimes really obscure bugs that would otherwise be found by the masses and then they would be all over social media. There was one bug that resulted in Sophia being naked that Nene caught. **That** would have been really, really bad and someone from Marketing came down personally to thank her.

"I don't think **I** have any time to go anywhere either." Nene looked at her to-do list and it was so long she needed four pages. "I should stay over tonight but these clothes..." Nene sniffed her shirt and the deodorant was slowly failing her.

"Go home. You most likely have enough overtime for the company to pay you an entire additional week if we had to." Umiko thought about it for a moment and changed her mind. "Go home, change clothes, bring another change and **come** **back**. I really could use your help with a few things and I am definitely not going to be able to go home tonight."

"You just can't be honest and tell me you want me to stay over at work with you." Nene had grown brave enough to try and tease Umiko but it usually backfired on her.

"If you try to crawl into my sleeping bag, again, I will shoot you. If you try to spy on me when I change, again, I will shoot you. And I just told you that I want you by my side for the night." Umiko knew exactly how that last line could be interpreted and it made Sakura's head light up in red.

Returning to work, Nene clocked out at 6 sharp. She was supposed to leave at 5 but for the last week she had never left before 10. And today she had to stay an extra hour because there was one bug that they just couldn't track down and Umiko had to push updated builds seventeen times. It took a long time to push it to the servers because she had to update the **full** build for that but if she only updated the necessary files and pushed them just for Sakura, she could test them quickly and under supervision.

"Hey Ahagon, can I borrow Nene for- huh, she's not here?" Yagami showed up and immediately had to take cover outside the booth because Umiko was about to shoot her. "Did she go home early today?"

"You realize that all debuggers are **supposed** to clock out at 5 and that most of them do because we cannot pay them for overtime. That Sakura is staying behind late every day shouldn't be something you take for granted."

"I never thought I'd hear **you** defend her. I wanted to borrow her so she could stand model for me for a minute. I'm supposed to draw the promo art for one of the big placards but I have trouble getting the pose right because they specified it way too much."

"Ask someone from your team." Umiko was not about to rent out Sakura to Yagami. After fighting a promotion with everything she could, Yagami really wanted to stay on as lead designer for at least the spin-off game. If she wanted to draw so badly, she should just draw and stop trying to poach her personal debugger.

"They're all neck deep in sprite work. I think if I don't send Yun home she is going to overheat and crash."

"You're bothering me, Yagami." Umiko stopped typing, looked up and let out an annoyed sigh. "Sakura will be back between 7 and 8. But she is coming back precisely because we're completely overworked and way beyond schedule because of the monster capture addition. You of all people should know how swamped everyone is."

Yagami saw reason. Umiko did look really busy and there was a huge to-do list on Nene's part of the desk. "So, are the two of you staying over together tonight?"

Umiko slowly got up and grabbed a fully automatic gun from her wall. Taking a magazine from a locked drawer, Yagami quickly escaped when she realized what was about to happen. Putting the gun away as soon as she could no longer hear Yagami's footsteps, Umiko sat back down. Normally she wouldn't really be bothered, since it should only take a few minutes, but she felt oddly protective of Sakura.

And at 7:40, Nene returned. "I took a shower as well." _Just in case. I don't want to smell like anything weird._

Umiko looked up and saw only a small duffle bag that Sakura had brought. "Sakura-san." That still made the blonde pay intense attention. "You forgot to bring a sleeping bag, didn't you?" Umiko wanted to say that it was on purpose but the shocked look on Sakura's face spoke for itself.

"And I put it on the couch, too, so I wouldn't forget it!" Nene groaned. "It'll take me at least an hour, probably a little more because the trains are running fewer times now, but Ill go get it!"

"Forget it. If you spend that much time in transit, you'll be too tired when you get back. Just start to work. I will make an exception and let you use my sleeping bag." Umiko kept hers below her desk just in case something came up and she had to stay over.

"Only if we share. Otherwise I'll just sleep in my chair." Nene hoped that she could pressure Umiko into cuddling with her, sharing the same sleeping bag. Thankfully, Umiko was slim and not as absurdly busty as Hazuki. And she herself was tiny. They could fit in together!

"Then you will be sleeping in your chair then. Don't complain to me if your back hurts tomorrow. I pushed a new build to your PC fifteen minutes ago, please test if this fixed the 52th floor hardlock." Umiko wasn't going to just indulge her like this.

"Yes..." Nene looked disappointed but got to work anyway. _And I put on some good underwear too_.

It was past 11 when they took a break, both of them working way overtime. A lot of lights were still on; proof that everyone was overwhelmed with this sudden new addition. After the success of Fairies 3, the spin-off was supposed to introduce people to dungeon crawling and also bring in even more people. People that generally didn't like RPGs but would start to buy the series if they really liked the spin-off.

"After playing it so much, what do you think of the game?" Umiko was just leaned back in her chair, sipping some iced coffee.

"The art is still super cute but I think the mechanics are actually what's shining this time. The dungeons are always random and pretty original! If you get really going, there is almost no downtime at all and the animations skip feature makes it so you can go really fast. It's a lot of fun building Sophia-chan up. It's a good game. I think the lack of different weapon types hurts the game a bit but… it's okay, Sophia-chan with a sword would be really weird after all." Nene was full of opinions. She didn't know how often she had answered this question already. "I thought about Fairies 3 a lot when I played it too, but now that I understand how parts of the game work, it really makes me appreciate the gameplay more."

"I'm glad that working with me and working so much overtime didn't make you hate the game." Umiko was genuinely glad about this.

"I'm pretty sure working with you on it made me like it more, because, it's kinda like my girlfriend made it. I-I don't mean you're my girlfriend, I haven't even asked you out or anything but-!" Nene realized she had said too much again. Just like that one time during the release of Fairies 3.

"Why don't you?" Umiko thought that she had strung Sakura along long enough. Sakura liked her, and by now it was obvious to herself that she liked her back. Not as strongly as Nene liked her, but it was a start.

"Because you're just going to be all **Sakura-san** and shoot me down." Sakura puffed up her cheeks to the absolute maximum.

"Well, that is certainly the case. At least for the next 17 days." Umiko smiled and put down her iced coffee. "Would you like the rest? I'm going to the bathroom and we should resume work after I come back." Without waiting for Sakura to reply, Umiko left the booth and headed towards the bathroom, just outside the office area.

 _Indirect kiss, indirect kiss!_ Nene got all excited and then realized that she had experienced this exact situation at least a dozen times already. Not that that lessened her excitement at all. Looking at her save file of of Sophia's game, Nene had an idea. She tabbed into the save file directory and copied all the files into another folder in her private files. Loading the save and opened a save point, she proceeded to fill all 99 slots with the same save game, closed the game, opened it and pressed load, only to have the game freeze up. _Umiko is going to kill me_.

At 2 AM, the save file bug was taken care off, Nene was at her absolute limit, coffee or not. Umiko was not faring much better.. "Ah… shit." Umiko cursed, something Nene had never heard before. Deleting an error, Umiko ran one final compile before she leaned back into her chair. "That's it for tonight."

Nene was already half asleep on the desk, her arms crossed and supporting her head, she was just about to nod off. Seeing her there, cute, sleepy and having worked 9 hours overtime without being paid for it, Umiko couldn't really let her sleep in that chair.

"Sakura-san." Umiko didn't get any reaction from the girl. "Nene." Now that made the girl looked up and yawn. "You can sleep in my sleeping bag. With me."

Nene was so far gone she could not even think about what was being offered anymore. She just wanted to close her eyes and drift off. Putting out the sleeping bag under her desk, Umiko only bothered to take off her shoes, panty hose and hotpants. As if she was in a trance, Nene imitated the programmer.

It was tight. Even with Nene being as tiny as she was and Umiko being thin, it was tight. Lying on her side, facing the wall, Nene was cuddled up against her, her short arms going around Umiko's waist. They had only been in there for about 45 seconds and Nene was already gone.

Umiko wasn't far behind. She only stayed awake long enough to smell Nene's hair, which had a pleasant apple shampoo scent to it.

Early in the morning, a little while before the office got really busy, Nene woke up first. She was blinded by a familiar chestnut colored sight; Umiko's hair. The events of last night came back to her quickly. If she could have, she would have pumped her fist in the air multiple times while shouting _Yes._ But since that was not an option, she simply went for shouting _Yes_ inside her mind. She was so close to Umiko that she felt her breathing, even though the programmer had her back turned towards Nene.

 _Ah, I can feel her butt. Yes, it was totally worth staying over! So worth it!_ Noticing that her hands were resting on Umiko's stomach, Nene thought that if not now, she'd never get a chance like this again. Slowly moving her arms up, little by little, while pretending to just move in her sleep, Nene reached Umiko's breasts, first merely resting her hands on them, then groping a little. _They're way more firm than I thought_. Squeezing a little harder, Nene started to be turned on. She was finally, **finally** , doing something erotic to Umiko.

Continuing to grope the sleeping programmer, Nene started to pant. _S-Should I try for her panties too? But… if she catches me that would be **really** bad news, right? _ But as she thought about it, she squeezed a little too hard and a moan escaped Umiko.

" **Sakura-san. What is the meaning of this**?" Was the immediate response that followed. Being woken up by the groping and feeling Sakura's hands on her breasts, Umiko was pretty pissed.

Nene tried to pull her arms away but since there wasn't really any space in the sleeping bag, she instead ended up squeezing down on the Okinawan's breasts really hard. Umiko twitched, kept down a moan, and then calmly opened the sleeping bag. Getting out of it, putting on her panty hose and hots pants, Umiko took a large caliber hand gun from her desk. " **Sakura-san**." Firing bullets on Nene, who was using the now empty sleeping bag as a shield, Umiko exacted her revenge.

Around the corner were the two programmers that worked with Umiko and both of them looked at each other with a look that just said _We didn't see or hear anything_.

Nene eventually came out of the sleeping bag and put her skirt bag on. Walking to where she could clock in, she worried about whether Umiko was going to stay mad at her now. Picking up coffee on the way back, Nene found that Umiko was much more mature than she herself was.

"I should have expected something to this effect. Please get to work. And do not bother with apologizing, I should have been aware that this would happen." Umiko's cold attitude was worse than being actually angry for Nene.

They spent the day without exchanging any non-work related words and the tension in the air was so palatable that the two other programmers wished those two would just make up already. Only when the time came for Sakura to clock out did Umiko concede that it was time to stop being irritated. "Three weeks after the release of the spin-off, I will have 10 days of vacation plus weekends. I would like you to come with me to a 7 days survival game camp during the first week of my vacation." Umiko knew she should sweeten the deal but she wanted Sakura to just think about it for a moment.

"I don't really get vacation days, I think." Nene was irritated by this now that she thought about it. "But I can ask a friend at work to cover for me."

"All participants have to bring their own gear, including tents and sleeping bags. My current bag is not at all suited for outdoor camping so I am going to be looking at a new one. I need to know if I buy a normal one or one that is extra large." Umiko didn't come right out and say it but Nene picked up on it.

"An extra large one. I'll pay my part. I'm a responsible, working, adult after all!" Nene looked proud. The tension significantly lessened after that, for about one hour. After that, Nene found a critical bug. "Umiko-san… You remember how I talked about the inventory overflow on the first day?"

"Don't tell me the bug sprung up again. I should have thoroughly fixed it." Umiko paused her typing.

"No, but… I found a much more severe bug that also results in overflowing item quantities. It's best if I show you." Nene waited for Umiko to move over with her chair. She opened the inventory and unlike many games, that didn't pause the game. Quickly switching between items at the border of the inventory, Nene then started slamming the equip, drop, eat and use buttons all at the same time.

Umiko hit the table with her fist when she saw the result. The item was being replicated endlessly within the inventory, stacking endlessly, with each stack being 255 in quantity. But the overflowing was not the worst part. The item duping itself was a problem. "I think this is because the game briefly removes the item from the slot when you try to do something with it and then places it back and if you move them at the same time as you do all those actions rapidly, it just gets confused and puts multiple items back. And because it doesn't really know the quantity of those additional ones it puts back it just uses FF. Probably because it doesn't process the inventory that quickly."

There was groaning and cursing from behind them. Both of the other developers turned around. "Overnight stay?"

"No, I will handle this." Umiko already had an idea of how to fox it. "Good job finding this, Nene."

It were these sorts of glitches that speedrunners eventually found years down the line. But in rare cases someone found it early and it ruined the experience of people when they didn't have the willpower to resist the easy way.

Nene didn't realize it at first but when she noticed that Umiko had called her by her first name, without honorific at that, in front of co-workers, her heart lit up.

And that day too, it was almost time for the last train when the three programmers called it a day. Nene had stayed behind and found multiple ways to get past Umiko's improved security against duping. They had finally found a solution that Nene couldn't crack, so they called it a day. "This will be the most bug free game we have ever released." One of the programmers said as she left.

"I will drive you home." Umiko was so incredibly tired, she almost wanted to take the train but then she would need to take the train in the morning as well.

Nene was always glad when she got to spent some extra time with Umiko. Considering her little adventure that morning, the blonde still thought that things were going really well. She was doing her job, and even getting better at it, and she was getting closer and closer to Umiko.

Driving through the nearly empty streets, Umiko yawned almost constantly. "I can't believe I am more tired now than I was during the last few days of Fairies 3. You're really creating a lot of extra work for me. But I'm sure the players will really appreciate both of our work."

"I hope so. I am not sure I'll want to play the game from scratch when it comes out. Not for a few weeks at least." Nene had invested so many hours over the last several weeks that she had even seen repeats of dungeons despite there being over 60,000 distinct variants.

"We will spent one week away from video games entirely when we attend the Eisenkreuz Survival Games." It was a famous survival game festival for airsoft fans all over Japan. There was prize money but Umiko really didn't believe that she could get there. There were some insanely good people out there.

"They… do have showers and toilets there, right?" Nene was worried about her hygiene.

"They do." Umiko chuckled. "It is one thing to not have them on standard fields where people just have matches and then go home. But they can't really not have them on a big field with many teams and almost all of them staying there for a week."

"What was it like after Fairies 3 released?" Nene wanted to know.

"Calm, for about one day. After that, we had to start patching some issues we didn't find during debugging. I assume I will have almost nothing to do post-launch for this title." Umiko glanced at Nene with a smile on her face. She truly appreciated having such a dedicated helper.

"I'm surprised you didn't do any DLC for Fairies 3."

"It was either DLC or the spin-off and since both the writer and Yagami thought that DLC would just hamper the story, management decided on a spin-off game instead." Umiko let out an especially loud and long yawn. _There is no way I can make it all the way to my place safely like this_.

"Do you… have any plans for Fairies 4? But even if you did you probably couldn't tell me."

"Our next project is actually already being planned. From what I've been told, it will be a tactical, free moving RPG like Valkyries Chronic. The current development name is just Dark Fairies." Umiko knew this was, in the absolute strictest sense possible, against company rules. But surely Nene knew better by now than to blurt out things in public.

They finally arrived at Nene's place. Letting the blonde out, Sakura looked back into the car. "Good night, Umiko." But before Nene could close the door, Umiko took off her seat-belt, turned off the engine and pulled her keys.

"Do you have a couch I can sleep on? It is unwise to drive when I can barely keep my eyes open. And without someone to talk to, I don't trust myself to make it home safely." Umiko saw how excited Nene appeared to be. "I am just staying over because I am exhausted."

"But… the thing is, I only have one bed and it isn't really that big." Nene lived in a small flat. There was no actual _living room_ so to speak. Only her bedroom. A kitchen. And a bathroom.

"Can you promise me that you will not repeat what happened this morning? In exchange I will not say anything when we visit the Eisenkreuz contest. And I expect that once we have passed release day, you will ask me out properly."

"I totally will! I mean, ask you out. Not about the groping and stuff. Although I probably will. During the contest I mean! And-"

" **Sakura-san**." Umiko wondered if this was going to keep working. It was almost a nostalgic feeling at this point, to see Nene get all tense. "Can we go inside?"

"S-Sure." Nene fumbled her keys and dropped them but she then opened up the door. The apartment building had a separate lock at the front door, a key that every resident had. Making it all the way to the third floor, Umiko just really wanted to go to sleep already.

"Do you have an alarm clock?" The programmer didn't want to be tardy when it was nearly crunch time.

"I wouldn't get to work in time without one." Nene admitted freely and opened up her flat's door. It really wasn't much but it was all hers. Her own four walls. Her own bathroom. Her own Umiko. Although the last one was sort of questionable.

"I apologize if I smell slightly unpleasant but I simply can't stay awake another minute." Undressing sloppily and quickly, Umiko fell face first in Nene's bed. "It smells like you," Was the last thing the tanned woman said before she fell asleep, leaving an anxious Nene behind. The temptation was incredible but Nene pinched her own cheek really hard to get a hold of herself. She hadn't worked her ass off for 2 years just so she could ruin her chances by not keeping her word.

Brushing her teeth after she undressed halfway, Nene hoped that Umiko could pick up a toothbrush somewhere on the way to work. Because she only had that one.

Ready for bed, Nene slipped under the covers with the woman from Okinawa who she was in love with. And it looked like she was finally being loved back. She couldn't wait for tomorrow. The week after. And so forth. She liked her job and she had found someone she liked that liked her back. Life was good. "Chocolate goddess..." Nene murmured, just before she fell asleep.

Continue? (Insert Coin)


	2. Chapter 2

**4 Days until the original release date of " _Sophia-chan's Great Magical Adventure"_**

Nene tried to snuggle up next to Umiko, both of them naked, hoping to steal a kiss from her while nobody was looking, with less than moderate success. She did get close to her soon-to-be girlfriend, but trying to steal a kiss away from her was met with an ironclad defense. Umiko placing her whole hand, stretched out, on Nene's face, keeping her away. "What are you trying to do?"

"A kiss, that's what!" Trying to swat away Umiko's hand, Nene received an almost brutal forehead flick that made her reconsider her attempt.

"Sakura. We don't have time for that. We have a mountain of work waiting for us at the office." Umiko let out a yawn and wished she could just fall asleep right here and now. But they already had to push release back a full week, due to no fault of the programming team.

Sliding a little further into the water, Umiko didn't even care that she had forgotten to tie up her hair, adding it to the long list of things she stopped caring about just to make that extended deadline. They had been good and ready to ship the game when word came down that the latest system update on their target console broke the version of the engine they were using. The manufacturer promised to have the error resolved within six months, because not many games were affected by it, but shipping a game that wasn't going to work for six months was not possible. So they had to update the engine to the next version and that had been a process as taxing and cruel as moving a skyscraper brick for brick by hand. Umiko, and Nene too, hadn't left the offices for anything other than taking a bath at the nearby bathhouse every night, for about 45 minutes. They even had food delivered right in front of the office.

"Don't remind me… and don't call me Sakura when we're alone!" Nene tried to pout but only succeeded in doing so for a handful of seconds before fatigue kicked in and made her stop. "When is this hell gonna end… what did we do to deserve this? Is this the blitz and are we the commonwealth?"

"London. The blitz took place in London." Umiko corrected her and then looked at Nene strange. "Where did you even pick up an obscure reference like that?"

Nene followed Umiko's example and relaxed, getting further into the water. "Cogs of Wars 4. I was watching some gameplay of it the other day while waiting for you to give me the first build on the update engine. Hehehe, don't I sound just like a programmer when I say nerdy stuff like _updated engine_?" Smirking, proud of herself and how far she had come, Nene couldn't even be bothered to show a reaction when Umiko had **no** reaction to her goofy comment.

The two were quiet for a while before Umiko found another thing to complain about. "I can't believe they asked us to do a PC port in-between development cycles for the next game. Starting with fairies 1 of all things. The engine of that is so old now… I think it might almost be easier to write the code from scratch."

Sakura turned around, laying flat on her stomach and raising only her torso a little by using her arms as support for her head. "You're going to need someone to test your code for bugs, glitches and exploits, right?" The hopeful expression on her face was met with a soft smile from Umiko. "Nailed it, didn't I?"

"If only you could be less self-satisfied about it." Umiko liked working with her. She could be overbearing, and sometimes annoying, but she did good work and most of all, she worked harder than everyone else from her company, much harder. Even if it was only because she wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. But this very fact that they spent so much time together made it harder and harder for Umiko to think about her in girlfriend terms. She was already someone she counted on for work, and counted on a lot at that. If she became her girlfriend, it would complicate matters.

Turning to her side, Umiko glanced at Nene's breasts. She never really had thought about what her _type_ was before, but seeing Sakura naked did give her a pleasant and excited feeling in her chest. _She's… not bigger than me, is she?_ The very fact that she thought that made Umiko smile by herself.

"What? Smitten by my beauty?" Nene wanted to strike a pose but didn't have the energy for it. She had gotten an average of four hours of sleep per day over the last week. If not for the private bathing sessions with Umiko, she would have given up already. The schedule they were working with was complete madness.

"Smitten by your dedication. I met someone from HR in the bathroom earlier and I heard that your company has filed a formal complaint about our schedule."

"Even if they call us back, I'll keep working! You'll hafta pay me in kisses and sexy times out of your own pocket though!"

"I am sure it won't come to that. We probably already filed for reimbursement with the console manufacturer over their broken OS." Umiko turned over, showing her back to Sakura. Her mind would be full of sexy thoughts for the rest of the night if she kept looking. "The company is probably going to give us some time off, after a few days of post-release observation." Umiko was really looking forward to that.

"You'll be super duper lonely after I'm assigned a new project, right? Working in that cubicle all on your own, with just the other programmers. No cute and sexy debugger lady to keep you company!" Nene had already procured Umiko's phone number and she was still planning on meeting her for survival games, so the loneliness would be kept in check.

"I think I am going to enjoy a few days of peace and quiet at work." Umiko could _hear_ Nene pout behind her back and she didn't care. It was fun to tease her a little. "You should work out a little before we attend the Eisenkreuz games."

"In three weeks, right?" Nene was both looking forward and nervous about that. She was kinda, sorta, confident in her abilities as a survival game player, but she was way excited about sleeping in the same tent as Umiko. _Getting up in the morning together, eating together, s-showering together_ … Nene started to breathe a little too fast and she felt dizzy in no time flat.

Umiko remained silent for the time being, just trying to relax. _Getting out, changing clothes… we're lucky if we manage four and a half hours of sleep._ It was past midnight and the rates of the bath were quite high, but because of the extraordinary circumstances of their work, the company paid for their necessary expenses. Because no matter how tight their schedule was, they couldn't just not shower for days.

Nene knew when to leave Umiko be and she really was tired enough herself. The updated engine didn't take **all** the code as-is, Umiko had told her, which made transitioning a tightrope walk. She had to basically check everything and anything over again. So far, there had only been minor glitches, like a menu stretching over 40 times across the screen and looping sound effects, but she couldn't let her guard down. _If I do a really good job here, I am going to get a super stellar review from Eaglejump and my pay is gonna go way, way up! And I'll be able to ask my boss directly to work with Umiko on her next game when the time comes!_ That she was going to have to work with another company, maybe even a competitor of Eaglejump, in the meantime didn't really bother her that much, not anymore. Bringing that concern up with Umiko had only resulted in the usual. _Sakura-san. Don't be ridiculous. As a professional, it is to be expected that something like that will happen_. Nene repeated the words in her head. She was a little mad that Umiko **wasn't** mad about how she was gonna be the debugger of someone else. _Though I won't work **this** hard with anyone else. This is a special Umiko-only service from Nene Enterprises!_

Their time eventually ran out and the two girls left, begrudgingly, got dressed and grabbed some green tea on their way out. Compared to the warmth of the bath, the temperature in the streets outside felt like it was about to snow. Nene clung to Umiko's arm, both of them wearing thick jackets, giving them the look of a couple taking a walk in winter. They deliberately went slowly because they were aiming to go to sleep in a few minutes. And still, Nene kept glancing around, hoping someone saw them being all couple-like and in love. In her eyes, Umiko was a super pretty, kinda exotic looking woman that she could be proud of to have snatched away from whatever competition there was out there.

Advancing towards their office building at a slow pace, they eventually came to a full stop just across the street of their destination. "Nene." Umiko still rarely called her that. And she couldn't help but smile, both on the outside and within, when she saw just how well Sakura responded to her doing so, beaming from one corner of her face to the other. A quick glance to either side of the street and Umiko was sure that nobody was watching. With their height difference, Nene still had to tiptoe next to her if they wanted to kiss, and even then, Umiko needed to bend down a little. Without needing Nene to let go of her arm, Umiko leaned towards her for a kiss, the short blonde eagerly and greedily snatching it from her dark lips. Staying like that, kissing in the street, Umiko felt Nene tremble, standing there on her toes, the cute short girl holding on to her arm.

Their kiss was nothing that special. No tongue, no deep and bursting forth passion, just two exhausted souls that desired a private, an intimate, moment out there in the cold. Umiko broke away after not too long, putting the index finger of her free hand up the still greedily puckered lips of the debugging girl that had chased after her despite overwhelming odds. "Sakura. Let's go."

"You always call me Sakura or even Sakura-san when you give me orders." Puffing up her cheeks a little, Nene rested her head against Umiko's upper arm, still clinging to her all the way to the entrance of the Eaglejump building. Only after they went inside did Nene let go, the eerie silence of the deep night making each of their steps echo through the entrance hall. Taking the elevator up, she couldn't keep a yawn contained. "You'd lynch me if I ever called you by your last name."

"I would." Umiko didn't deny it at all. She really had no reason to be embarrassed by her last name when she was all alone with Sakura, but she also really had no reason to give her some ammunition against her either. Keeping the bundle of energy under control was part of her job, as Nene's supervisor, and probably going to be a major factor when they started their relationship proper.

Getting back into the offices, they stumbled across Kou and Rin, both of them half asleep, returning from the bathroom, hair messed up by having already slept for a bit. Kou just raised her hand and tried to smile, but didn't manage to. She didn't have the energy to mess with Ahagon that late in the night.

"Good night." Umiko was ever polite, even this late. Nene instead choose to imitate Kou and waved back. Despite the close relationship between the programmer and the debugger, they still slept each in their own sleeping bag, yet not under different desks but together, next to Nene's machine. Lately, Umiko had taken to wearing skirts more often because they were less hassle to take off when going to sleep. Nene did the same the moment she caught on to Umiko's changed routine, to have a little bit of a partner-look.

Nene pouted a little, every night before they fell asleep, because Umiko refused to share a sleeping bag with her like they did once before. "When you hire me back for the next game, I'll bring an extra big sleeping bag!" She said this, too, every night.

"Management will hopefully avoid a repeat of this disaster of a schedule." The brunette really wasn't the type that enjoyed staying over. Much less so doing it this frequently.

"It's Hazuki-san's fault." Nene got comfortable in her brand new sleeping bag, right next to Umiko. Sometimes, she was even lucky enough that Umiko slept facing her way. Sadly, tonight was not such a night. Umiko really wanted to sleep, just sleep. It didn't take long for that to happen, for Sakura and Umiko both.

 **3 Days until the original release date of "Sophia-chan's Great Magical Adventure"**

The next day was just a lot more of the same. Umiko adjusting code, pushing the update to Sakura who checked the result on her own PC. Lunch time came and went in the blink of an eye. It was shortly after 2 PM when Nene's stomach reminded them of the time. There was no great conversation, only a quick query. "Chinese?" Umiko had her phone in hand, ready to dial one of several saved numbers to order delivery.

"Again…?" Nene couldn't see any more Chinese food. Umiko turned to her other co-workers and they just didn't really care as long as it was food.

"Ramen it is." Dialing, ordering and getting back to work, the time just kept getting away from them. They were running, sprinting, against a deadline and they still had so unbelievably much code to fix up and double check. Nene found only one minor glitch that entire day. The game would stutter in the intro cinematic if the player scaled up all the graphical options.

The ramen came, was consumed and work continued. This dreary existence, only interrupted when Umiko and Nene left the office around 2 AM to go and take a bath, continued for three more days. It was now the day of their original release date and everyone was particularly on edge because of it. And early that evening, the programmers ran into an issue that made Umiko punch her table with both fists at the same time. That night, she and Nene barely talked, too irritated, too annoyed and too overworked. And work would only get more stressful still.

And as the days continued to pass, the atmosphere in the coder's cubicle continued to degrade. Two days before the delayed release, just around evening, Umiko stared at her screen in disbelief for a long minute. A smile, then a quiet laugh followed this, a breath of disbelief. "I'm… done." Turning to the other programmers behind her, they both shook their head, having heard the movement of her office chair. "How close?"

"Tomorrow for sure." "Me too." They answered, one after another. Umiko turned to Nene with a hopeful look in her eyes. It had been a very long time since she'd been this desperate to finish a project. The next time Hazuki would try to squeeze some absurd addition to the game in at the last minute she was going to throw her into a hole and throw away the hole.

"A few minor things." Nene handed over a handwritten list. Her handwriting was almost just scrawled nonsense now but Umiko had learned to decipher her hieroglyphs over the last week _._

 _A buggy screen. A missing texture. A scene where no BGM plays._ It really were just a bunch of minor things. And still, she was done updating the code for the updated engine. Only bug fixes remained now. The worst part of this hell were finally over.

It was just past nine when Umiko thought it was time to call it a day. "Sakura."

But the girl was so immersed, and exhausted, that she was just staring away at the screen, mindlessly performing her work, murmuring under her breath. She wasn't cut out for this kind of workload, nobody was. She only stopped when Umiko took the controller from her hands. "Is it time for our bath?" Nene asked, completely oblivious to what time it was.

"It is time to go home." Umiko put the controller on the table, her own PC already in hibernation and the screen off. Getting out of her chair and putting her hands on Nene's shoulders, the programmer said something else, only loud enough for Sakura to hear. _Together_.

That put new life in Nene. "Finally! I think I am just going to meld with my bed and sleep for a hundred hours! Like Snow White, but way cuter!" _And with a chocolate goddess to wake me instead of some second rate prince!_ Considering how overworked she was, she really felt like she was going to do just that; sleep for a hundred hours.

"Until tomorrow." Umiko said her goodbyes to her other co-workers and grabbed her jacket from her chair, walking out of the cubicle and waiting for Nene, who was in such a hurry to get out of her chair that she fell, stumbling over the legs of her chair. Umiko cushioned her descend with her body, holding the shorter girl by her shoulders again.

Getting to the elevator, a familiar voice shouted at them. "Wait, wait, keep it open!" Nene put her foot in the way of the sliding door and it stopped closing, slowly retracting into the metal wall it came from. Seconds later, an out of breath Yagami Kou, and equally out of breath Tooyama Rin arrived at the elevator, both wearing thick jackets, just like Umiko and Nene. "Oh, Ahagon, going home tonight?"

"Yes." Umiko reached for the gun she usually kept with her but she had forgotten it on her desk. But Nene had her back. To get used to the feel and weight of her own guns, she often carried them around. In her mind, she was like an Umiko in training when she did that. Casually throwing a small handgun to Umiko, who stood right next to her, Nene watched the tanned woman point the gun at Yagami but not fire. It would be annoying to pick up the pellets in the elevator. And dangerous, if she missed and a ricochet hit someone in the eye.

"Since when do you carry air soft guns around, Sakura-san?" Rin was both worried and curious about this development. It was obvious, plain as day, that Nene liked Umiko but Rin didn't know if this was unrequited or not.

"She's started playing a while ago." Umiko answered for her and looked just a tad happy about that, the corners of her mouth not quite forming a smile but almost.

"Just what we needed, two violent survival game maniacs." Kou took cover behind Rin, in fear of retribution. "How is the coding coming? We're not going to have to delay again, right?"

"Only some small bug fixes remain on my to-do list. The other programmers are going to be done by tomorrow, too. We have half day to spare. But it almost feels like this release is cursed." Umiko really hoped that nothing else was going to happen.

"It really might. Sophia-chan's violent ghost from Fairies 3, haunting our studio and… Rin?" Kou was smirking wide while she was playing along. Until she felt Rin shaking in front of her. _Ah… I forgot she isn't good with scary stuff._ "We're just joking Rin. There's no such thing as ghosts from video games."

"Maybe there's parallel worlds out there for each game we make, and Sophia was all real in one and now her angry ghost can't rest on peace because you patched out that bug where she would never die, and she's transcended dimensions to take her revenge with this game!" Nene was about to pour more oil in the fire when the programmer put her hand flat on Sakura's head and got her to stop.

"So Sakura, your time here is almost up here. Was a lot harder than last time, right?" Yagami didn't know about the precise circumstances of how Sakura had gotten hired and assigned to Eaglejump but she didn't mind. She was actually doing good work and wandering off a lot less this time. Which was weird. Kou definitely thought that she was coming back to work with Aoba again, but she could count the times she caught Sakura wandering all the way over to the character designer's cubicle on one hand.

Rin on the other hand was not nearly as dense as Kou was. She could tell, just from Nene's reactions and the way Umiko treated her now that there was more between them than being co-workers or friends. _They have it so good… Kou is too shy to be all couple-like with me in public._ "I'm sure Umiko will be very fair and forthcoming in her review of your work."

"Huh?" Umiko didn't know what Rin meant by that.

"What do you mean, _huh_? Didn't Hazuki-san tell you that since you work with Sakura-san in such close proximity, you're her supervisor and have to write her review?" Rin had a very bad feeling on what the answer to this question was going to be. The perplexed and mildly annoyed look on Umiko's face said all that had to be said. "That… careless… woman..." Rin closed her eyes in anger, her right hand clenched into a fist, trembling. "So you didn't take notes on her performance over the weeks?" And again, Umiko's face said all that had to be said.

"Eh, she can just make something up. Sakura worked pretty hard this time, right? I mean, none of the other debuggers were ever here past eight. Least not that I remember." Kou had a very _relaxed_ idea of what could go into a supervising report of her subordinates. She was frequently yelled at for her attitude regarding that, too. She took her work seriously and trained the girls properly, so why did she have to write essay-length reports on them? As long as they did their work well and quickly, why would anyone care?

"She can't just _make something up_! That's so irresponsible of you to say, Kou-chan!" Rin turned around to face her secret lover and gave her a good talking to.

"Boo boo, no lover's quarrel in the elevator!" Nene crossed her arms in front of her.

"W-W-W-Who is having a lover's quarrel?!" Yagami was so surprised to hear Nene say that, her composure broke harder than a proof of concept build for a game. Umiko made mental note of this.

The elevator reached the ground floor and the _ding_ of the doors opening came as a release, a breath of freedom, for both Yagami and Tooyama. "Until tomorrow then. And try to think of something for the report, Umiko-san." Rin waved goodbye and quickly followed her partner. "Kou-chan, wait up!"

"They are **so** bad at hiding it." Nene's smug smile was so smug and irritating that even Umiko thought it was overblown and walked right past her. "Ah, Umiko, wait!"

Catching up to Umiko, and making their way to the parking lot, Nene thought that Umiko was angry with her because she was very quiet. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No. But I am trying to think of what to put in your report. You did exceptional work for the game and there were so many bugs you found that it is difficult to narrow it down. I will have to ask Tooyama about this tomorrow." Just the moment she had finished one job, **more** work popped up.

"Just write that I was super-duper useful and you totally want me back all the time!" Nene grabbed Umiko's arm, clinging to her, smirking wide. "But don't write that I ate Yagami's pudding again!"

"So that **was** you..." Umiko looked at her future girlfriend with a sour expression. "You shouldn't do that, even if she deserves it." Pulling her keys from her pocket, and dropping them, Nene caught them in mid-air. "I didn't know you had such good reflexes."

"It's all that dungeon crawling! I'm a master multitasking super reflex gamer now! I bet I could play with 2 controllers at the same time!" Nene exaggerated but she did notice her reflexes had gotten better. Not from gaming, of course, but the survival games they played. Situational awareness and reflexes played a big role in that.

Umiko tried to get in the car, the door already wide open in front of her, but Nene was pulling on her arm. "Kiss, kiss!" The girl bounced on her toes, with puckered lips.

"We could do that in the car…" Umiko wanted to get out of the cold. It was late October now, and quite cold at this time of the day.

"No! It's way more romantic to do it like this! Like I'm seeing off my super secret agent lover about to embark on a dangerous mission to explore her past and unveil a vast conspiracy of the government's involvement in illegal military operations!"

Umiko recognized that **way** too specific scenario immediately. "I am not Janet Bourne." But she budged. Giving Nene a quick kiss, Umiko pulled free, sat in the car and closed the door. Nene quickly stepped around the car's back, that Umiko turned on right as she was next to the passenger door, and opened the door. It was even colder inside the car than it was outside.

"My butt is gonna freeze off!" Nene squirmed in her seat, quickly resorting to rubbing her hands that had gotten quite cold from clinging to Umiko's arm. While the car was running but not moving, Umiko grabbed hold of Nene's right hand with her left, warming up her hand with her own, for just a moment, before she pulled away, driving out of the mostly empty parking lot.

Umiko parked in front of the building where Nene had her home. It was so much closer to the company than her own place. Over the last 3 weeks, she had brought some clothes and a toothbrush over to Nene's place. It was dangerous to drive while being so sleep deprived, which meant that she stayed over almost as often as they had gone home at all.

Nene already got out of the car and was fumbling with her keys in front of the door when Umiko locked the car and slowly walked towards Nene, her breath floating away as white clouds, emerging from her mouth with every step. _I know I shouldn't be staying with her while we work together, but she has kept her word until now. And I am pretty sure that Yagami and Tooyama stay together, so there is a way to combine a relationship and still do reasonably good work_.

Opening the door and stepping inside, they quickly made it up to Nene's apartment without another word. It felt like a dream about to come true, to go to sleep before midnight, to get a full night's rest. No amount of Nene's passion could overcome her exhaustion, not today. The jackets thrown on a chair that was left by the entrance exactly for that purpose, Nene headed into the small bathroom first. "You wanna take a shower before bed?" The sound of water rattling through the pipes, gushing out of the shower head then echoed out from the bathroom.

"After you." Umiko was definitely not going to shower with Sakura. Bathing together was unavoidable, but there was something far more erotic about showering together in her apartment compared to just taking a bath together in a public place.

Lying down on Sakura's bed, Umiko thought about just going to sleep right there and then. But taking a shower in the morning meant she had to dry her considerably long hair with just a towel since Sakura's hairdryer broke just recently. And it was far too cold outside to go out there with wet or even just damp hair. Not to mention that it meant she would have to wake up earlier than the last possible minute and she didn't think she had the discipline for that, not right now.

Hovering between reality and sleep, Umiko couldn't help but fantasize a little about the naked Nene behind that white door. _She's surprisingly… curvy. I wonder if she's bigger than me._ Umiko hadn't really done anything but work, work, work for the past ten days at least. And now she couldn't help but think about Nene's body. _I'm not the sort to think about this… not usually._ The peace and quiet of the room, disturbed only by the tranquil sound of the shower behind a closed door, made Umiko even more sleepy than before. _Is Nene rubbing off on me? How dreadful_. Hearing a loud yawn, she only realized that it came from herself when she felt a few of Nene's hairs, that were stuck to the pillow, tickle her lips.

Time was both standing still and passing way too fast because it felt like Nene had just stepped into the bathroom seconds ago, and yet there she was, coming out of the same room, wearing just a very large shirt, a white towel covering her hair. "Hey! No going to sleep without me!" Nene complained to her, sitting down on the bed, halfway turned towards Umiko, who barely managed to get off the comfortable mattress. "No falling asleep in the shower!"

Umiko looked at Sakura with mild annoyance before she flicked her forehead. "Cheeky girl." The bathroom was filled with clouds of water condensation, damp and really hot. The temperature of the thermostat was all the way up. _Nene really loves to cook herself_. She herself was used to hot, and very hot, weather, which meant she shared this particular trait with Nene. _I suppose at least there won't be arguing over the water temperature if we ever do shower together_. Umiko thought she might have blushed from that thought but she couldn't tell without looking into a mirror and she didn't care enough to do just that.

Showering, and feeling the sleepiness grow ever more intense because of the hot water, Umiko noticed that the shampoo she had brought was empty. _Shit_. She rarely cursed but taking care of her hair was important. "Nene?!" Umiko raised her voice, shouting through the door. There was no answer. Taking Nene's shampoo instead, Umiko didn't bother hurrying. Haircare was important, especially with the strain it had to endure during survival games.

Grabbing the large black towel that she had ordered online just a few days ago, Umiko stepped out of the shower and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was very fit, not toned or muscular but there was hardly any fat on her hips and none on her stomach. _Am I… Nene's type? Does she have a type?_ It had only been a few weeks since she first started to even consider _romance_ as something she was going to include in her life, so many of these thoughts came at a surprise to her. Putting on one of several large shirts available, which they kept specifically for circumstances like these in the bathroom at all times, Umiko left the bathroom, a wall of hot steam accompanying her, only to find the very same girl that had said _No going to sleep without me_ already asleep on her own bed, hugging the comforter like a body pillow.

 _Whatever will I do with you, Nene?_

 **The next morning**

"Why didn't you set the alarm?!" Nene was jumping down three stairs at a time, her hair a complete mess and her clothes just barely in the right place. It was 9:30 AM and they were late, **really** late.

"It is **your** alarm clock and apartment!" Umiko didn't want to be blamed for this. Nene had overslept just as much as she herself did! "There is no excuse for this that they are going to believe. We should just tell them we overslept and I picked you up a few streets away from the building."

"Eh, we're still hiding that you're staying at my place?!" Nene wanted to pout and object to this but they didn't have time. The second they stepped outside, they ran towards the car, got in and seconds later drove off.

"It is not exactly against company policy but it might reflect negatively on both you and me. Especially so because I am the one writing your performance review and report. If they know we are staying together they might argue that I unjustly praised you in your review because of personal bias and our relationship." Umiko took a turn really sharply.

"If you keep driving like that we're going to hear Beat of the Rising Sun in our heads any moment!" Nene loved to make some rather obscure reference, but this one Umiko actually recognized.

"We will already be reprimanded for coming in this late. Driving like a street racer is not fully optional because of this." Hitting the gas and speeding through a yellow light, Umiko had a bad feeling.

They arrived in the parking lot shortly before 10 AM and managed to clock in before the hour rolled over. Nobody seemed to have even registered they weren't there yet, or they didn't care. Only Shizuku Hazuki, game director and head of the entirely female department, was already waiting for them. "Umiko-san, Sakura-san, good timing. A word with you, please."

"Oh crap." Nene whispered with an anxious look on her face. _Don't fire me, don't fire me. Don't fire Umiko either! And don't realize that I am the one that always eats the pudding!_

"I've had a look at how many overtime hours the two of you, and the rest of the programmers have racked up recently. And I received a very strongly worded letter about work conditions from Human Resources this morning." Hazuki was sweating a little. To call the letter _strongly worded_ was an understatement. To put it plainly, she had been yelled at. "To say this as gently as possible, I can't have either of you work any more overtime. Especially you, Sakura-san. The chairman of your company was a little angry about the hours you were piling up."

 _Thank god! I am not fired!_ Nene was so relieved she wanted to sink to her knees.

"Why is it an issue if we work overtime? We are not paid on an hourly basis and neither are the debuggers. We would have had to delay the game by three weeks instead of one if all of us hadn't worked so much overtime." Umiko thought that a one week release was already bad, given their otherwise spotless track record.

"It's not really a money issue but they said we could get in real trouble if you decided to go to HR and tell them we're pushing unreasonable schedules on you, forcing you to work enough overtime to violate the labor conditions of the industry." There was no lying to Umiko about this, Hazuki was very aware of this. "So, please don't."

"It **is** your fault that we had to work so much overtime… maybe I **should** go visit HR and tell them that a certain director walks off too much and doesn't do enough work of her own." Umiko reached for a gun that wasn't there. She had kept Nene's gun from last evening and then forgot it at her place. _I really need to take better care of loaned belongings._

"Anything but that!" Hazuki knew that something like that would not end pretty.

"I am sure that nobody would mind if the director were to write the most exceptional of our debuggers a check for a bonus for all her hard work." Umiko figured that Nene could use it. There were a bunch of things that girl had to buy for the survival game marathon in a little over 2 weeks.

"I'll see what I can do."Hazuki flinched when Umiko reached for something on her back again. _She's gonna shoot me!_ "I'll make it happen!" Taking off like the wind, Hazuki declared to herself to not push massive changes or additions to the game so late in the development cycle ever again. Next time she would do it a few months earlier! Or as DLC!

"Isn't that blackmail?" Nene asked while grinning wide, watching the nervous Hazuki vanish around a corner.

"No, this is justice." Umiko had endured Hazuki's crazy decisions for long enough already. She would never complain to HR about her, but as director she made enough money to sport Nene a bonus.

"Getting my first bonus, yay! Thank you, Umiko!" Clinging to Umiko right there, in the office, the programmer pushed her away. "What?!"

"Remember, I need to write your report and people shouldn't assume I am biased. Thankfully, I only have a few bugs to fix today and plenty of time to do that report, or review, whatever they want to call it."

"Boo, party pooper!" Nene just wanted to ask Umiko out already. But alas, the target of her affection was quite adamant about that. No dating while they worked together.

Getting to their cubicle, the other programmers were on their last spurt. Umiko woke her machine from hibernation and immediately got to work on the few glitches that Nene had found the day before, while the girl herself got to work in a different way, messing with all the configuration options and checking if it broke the game in any way.

Noon came quickly. Umiko had finished fixing the last bits of code and had started writing Nene's report after getting the necessary from sent to her by management. Nene was about to give up. She had tried some rather obscure things now and was running out of ideas. The code the other programmers worked with was mainly text and graphics related, not a lot for her to test. "Umiko, I'll go buy lunch. What do you want?"

"Something I can eat quickly with my hands. Preferably sandwiches." Umiko was really sick of Japanese, Chinese and Italian food all the same. Racking her brain on all the things that Nene had helped her with, Umiko had been told the report had to be at least so and so long but no longer than this and that. It was difficult to give an appropriate review of Nene's value to the programmers with the amount of text she could work with. She didn't want it to read like a list of important bugs she had found, either.

"Roger, roger! Nene, taking off!" Grabbing her jacket and wallet, Nene headed off. She saw Aoba and her friends right next to the elevator. "Aocchi!" Calling out and quickly dashing over to them, she caught them just in time for the elevator to open.

"Nenecchi! Still working hard to fix the game?" Aoba was still close to Nene, even though they didn't talk as much now as they did when she still went to college.

"It was super hellish for the last 2 weeks but we're finally all done! Umiko is just writing up my report now." Nene stretched on the spot. "I **so** wanna take a week off after the game releases but I already have plans for 2 weeks from now and I can't afford not working for a month."

"Umiko, huh? No honorific?" Hajime's smug grin went completely ignored by Nene. "What plans do you have?"

Nene pretended her fingers were a gun and aimed at Hajime. "Bang~! I'm going to some kind of really big survival game festival with Umiko."

"Looks like things are going well for you. I'm happy for you, Nenecchi." Aoba was aware by now of why Nene had uprooted her entire life. But she didn't really bring it up in conversation. It was Nene's private life and all.

"So today is your last day at Eagle Jump, least until the next game is about to roll off the shelves." Yun was glad that they had managed to finish in time for the first delay. She totally understood why the programmers couldn't make the original deadline with the addition of that monster catching system and the sudden engine thing she didn't really get.

"Yeah." Nene looked dejected all of a sudden. "I'll have to go back to working with people I don't know. **But**!" A chuckle emerged from Nene, getting louder as the elevator opened up, and finally evolving into evil laughter as they stepped inside. "I will finally no longer be just a co-worker for Umiko!"

"You're **really** in love with her, aren't you?" Yun was almost embarrassed to see someone so honest with their feelings. If she was even **half** as honest as that, things would be pretty different for her.

Nene blushed when she was asked this. She usually didn't even realize how much she was wearing her emotions on her sleeve. "Y-Yeah, you bet!" But she was committed to this. No amount of embarrassment would ever make her deny how she felt about Umiko. Even though she stood there with a bright red face. "Don't look at me like that!"

"If Tooyama-san or Yagami-san could be **that** honest with their feelings… right?" Yun glanced at Hajime.

"Would save us so many embarrassing situations." Hajime couldn't bring herself to just tell her boss that basically everyone already knew about them but was being considerate. Aoba only chuckled awkwardly and scratched her cheek. She was not one to talk.

Hifumi didn't say a single thing the entire time and Nene dashed off the moment the elevator arrived at the ground floor. "She's… really energetic..."

"Nenecchi has always been like that." Aoba watched the girl disappear in the distance. "I don't think anything will ever change her."

Umiko was still brooding over her report when Nene returned, a white plastic bag with packed sandwiches in her hand. "Tada!"

"Good work." Umiko leaned back into her chair and hit save. She wasn't done yet, but better safe than sorry. Nene placed all the sandwiches, perfect triangles with various things between two pieces of bread, on the table. "What's wrong?" Umiko could tell when Nene was hiding something.

"Today's my last day here." Nene sat down, grabbed a sandwich and tore off the wrapping. "So I won't see you after the release party."

"My schedule will be light for some time after release and then I will have my vacation days." Picking a tuna sandwich, because she liked fish, Umiko saw that this was about daily interaction, not actually working together. "Give me your phone."

Nene already had Umiko's number so she didn't know what this was for but she handed over her phone anyway. The programmer got busy for more than a minute before she handed the phone back. "I installed Face2FaceTime. If you call me through that app, it will open a video chat." Umiko put on her serious face. "Don't call me with that during work hours."

"But lunch break!"

"I don't always take lunch break at the same time. And won't you be working, too?"

"Ah. Right. Ugh." Nene tried not to think about that. "Speaking of my next job..." Nene shifted back and forth in her chair. "Are there any companies you think I should try to prioritize?" _Not like I'll really get much of a choice, I think. But I wanna know what companies Umiko thinks are good._

"You are paid the same regardless of where you work, so something local would probably be best. I also heard that Pentendo is unbelievably strict with their beta testing, but they have some of the best games on the market, which might make it worth the experience. Fony doesn't actually do much in-house software development. A developer I admire is actually RockingStar Games. Or Jäger Development. Both of them made games I really like."

"Games like? I know you like first person shooters and survival stuff. I'll probably have some time between jobs to play something and..." Nene put her fingers together. "Maybe I could play something you recommend."

"But you don't like the same genres I do." Umiko figured that if she recommended something heavy like Great Theft Auto or Spec Ops: Desert Line, she would just turn Sakura off the genre forever. _Something light… and fun… maybe with some RPG elements…_ "Marx Pain is a series that first brought _Bullet Time_ to the mainstream FPS genre. There are three games and I recommend starting with the first."

"Marx Pain, got it!" Nene typed it on her smartphone as a memo.

"If you are going to play something from my preferred genre I feel I should return the favor. I do own most of the current generation and older generation consoles at home." _If she is making such an effort, I should put in some work of my own. I assume a relationship works better if there is a healthy balance between both people_.

"Xeroblade Chronology!" Nene didn't even need to think about that. "It's on the Wee but it doesn't really use the motion controls and it's super huge. There's mega big maps and lots of stuff to explore and also giant robots and machines and stuff. But you probably shouldn't try to do all the side-quest stuff, you'll go all gray and wrinkly before you're done!"

"I think I haven't used my Wee in… years." There just weren't really games that she liked on it. It was primarily Pentendo first party games and while she owned a few of them, mostly for nostalgia reasons, she really hated the motion controls.

"I barely use mine either, but Xeroblade is great. Tell me what you think when you play it!" Nene was excited. Exchanging games they liked was like exchanging phone numbers all over.

"Sakura-san?" One of the other programmers wanted to ask for a favor. "There is a bit of iffy code regarding the boss monster display, if you could some quick runs to make sure they show up okay in-game that would really help me out."

"Sure thing. I'm still on the clock and everything until tonight!" Finishing her sandwich and powering up her machine, Nene got to work on Sophia-chan's Great Magical Adventure for the final time.

And when the time to clock out came, Nene felt a tightness in her chest, one that felt like she was being crushed. She loved working here, with Umiko, no matter how hard it was. There were Aocchi and her friends, too. _I don't want to leave_. It was a job, but at the same time it was also more than that.

"I have to stay for a little longer as the head programmer of the project but I can walk you to the door. Do you have money for the train?" Umiko stood there and put on her jacket while Nene hadn't gotten out of her chair yet, still clutching the controller in her hands. "Don't make that face."

Nene' bit her lower lip and looked at Umiko all teary eyed. "What face? I'm just tired. Ah, I'm gonna relax **so** much tomorrow!"

"You deserve it. But don't forget to get a little exercise. If you have no other plans, we can still go to the survival field this weekend." Umiko was **really** looking forward to this. She hadn't gone in over three weeks now because of their insane workload.

"We'll knock their socks off with our ultimate teamwork!" Nene was always more enthusiastic about it before they got there than she was during it. Getting dirty, shot at and running around a lot was too tiring to retain most of that burning enthusiasm but it was still fun and all that exercise did wonders for her figure.

"You will have to train a lot more before we can speak of ultimate anything." Umiko tugged on Nene's sleeve. "Come."

Walking Nene out of the office and to the elevator, Umiko hit the button for the elevator to come and looked at her smartphone. It was two minutes after Nene's final time clocking out. They had gotten out ahead of all the other debuggers and were all alone in the elevator. "I am sure we'll have you back for our next game."

"Are you gonna ask for me? You should totally do that!" Nene tried to smile wide but she was feeling down, clear for anyone to see.

The short elevator ride ended abruptly and the two of them stepped outside. Umiko walked right beside Nene, who looked sadder and sadder with each step. "You can still see me on weekends and after hours."

"I know and I'm not sad or anything! It's just… time went by so quickly. I wish I had some skill to get hired here permanently." _Maybe I should have learned to program for real instead of just going for the whole debugger thing…_

Walking past the building, Umiko grabbed Nene's arm and stopped. It didn't take much effort to pull the blonde into a quick embrace. Because of their height difference, both of her arms went almost straight down Nene's back, right over her shoulders. "Nene."

It made her heart beat faster. The way Umiko looked at her, soft and caring, so very different from her usual look. That gentle and rare smile on her lips, it really made Nene swoon. _Ah… she's so beautiful and somehow cool at the same time_. Getting on her toes, Nene was ready for a kiss, but she was denied that.

"We're not co-workers anymore." Umiko's strict policy about work relationships no longer applied to Nene.

"Umiko, please go out with me!" Nene burst out without even having to think about it. She had waited so long for this. So many weeks of being _kinda_ with Umiko but not _really_.

"I would love to, Nene." Seeing the glee and overbearing happiness in Nene's face made Umiko feel warm and also a little insecure on the inside. She had never been in a relationship before but if there was someone that was right for her, it had to be Nene.

Her long, chestnut colored hair fell over Nene's shoulders when she leaned in to kiss her, a real kiss, passionate, white clouds raising all around their faces as their hot breath escaped their mouths. And to Umiko's surprise, it was Nene who broke away first, her face flushed with red and her lips glistening wet from the kiss. "I love you, Umiko." The words came out naturally, without a stammer or hesitation.

She hadn't really been sure until then but now, in this situation and hearing those words, Umiko understood that for a little while now, she felt the same. "I love you too." And Umiko couldn't keep herself from teasing her girlfriend. "Sakura-san."

"Meanie! Calling me that right now!" Nene pouted hard but she couldn't be really angry at Umiko like this. Her arms around the brunette's back, she had never felt happier in her life than now. "Stupid Ahagon!"

Umiko flinched but figured that she deserved that one. "Nene… I'm glad you decided to chase me. I would probably have never known about how much fun it can be to date someone if not for you. And I would never have realized how much I would come to like you."

"Jeez, you're making me blush now! But I'm not gonna forgive you just with flattery!" Nene puffed up her cheeks and kept looking up at Umiko. "I'm… really happy you didn't turn me down."

"You gave me every reason not to. You kept your word, followed the rules I laid out for you and most of all you went above and beyond everything I ever expected from you. You picked up survival games, just for me, even though you hated it. You even changed what you wanted to do in the future just to be with me. I'm a little… humbled that someone would go that far for me."

Nene blushed so hard now and was so embarrassed by this overwhelming amount of honesty that she couldn't get another word out and instead pushed her face against Umiko's chest. She was soundly a full head shorter than her, so that was the optimal height. _Ah… kinda soft and firm at the same time_.

"Go home and rest, Nene." Umiko gently moved her fingers through Nene's hair. "Go home and know that you can proudly call me your girlfriend from now on."

"Don't mind if I do!" Nene turned her head a few times, rubbing her face against Umiko's breasts, before she was pushed away. "Stingy!"

"I have to go back in. The checks are all done but we still have to send out the gold package." Leaning forward and kissing Nene one last time, Umiko smiled at her a few seconds later. "Thank you for your hard work."

Staring at each other, Nene broke the silence first. "This is awkward. Super awkward. I don't wanna let go."

Umiko resolved the awkwardness by pinching Nene's cheeks. "I really do have to go back up, Nene. But I'll call you after the release meeting is over. And for the release party tomorrow, I'll come and pick you up." Umiko felt a little nervous already when she thought about acting like a couple with Nene in front of everyone. Releasing Nene's cheeks, now every bit as red as the center of her face but for different reasons, Umiko took a step back. "I'll call you later."

Nene found her inner bravery and took a step back as well. "If I don't answer, keep it ringing, I'm probably in the bathroom or shopping online for Melt Pain."

"Marx Pain." Umiko corrected her with an amused smile just before she turned around and walked away. She had managed to keep her composure the entire time but her heart was really beating like crazy, wild and ferocious. A level of thrill and excitement that otherwise only a heated match of airsoft provided.

Umiko sat through the lengthy meeting with her smartphone set to off because she expected that Nene would just call her constantly. The meeting ran very long because they were a week behind original release date. There was a lot of apologizing from Hazuki. The end of development cycle reports were given one by one and Umiko had a lot of things to say about the sudden implementation of the monster capture system and the issues the console manufacturer caused. "And lastly, I would like to comment on the work ethnic and capability of the debugging firm that was hired. Compared to our previous employment of part-time workers, testing was more rigorous but at the same time, more limited. While technical detail was examined at a higher level, there was a strong lack of contextual feedback. For lore and consistency related issues, we had to rely almost entirely on one of our debuggers, Sakura Nene-san. For the future, I thereby request that we hire one or two people on demand that are required to have a deeper understanding of the games we produce here for the purpose of ensuing a higher level of consistency and universe logic within each game." Umiko sat back down, having finished her report.

More reports followed and finally, the game was declared gold and shipped for mass production. There would be substantially less advertisement for this title because it was just a spinoff but with the impact Fairies 3 left, social media would do its due. It was almost 10 PM now and Umiko eagerly checked her phone the second they left the conference room. And she thought it was broken. There were no missed calls or new messages. _That's strange_. She was sure that Nene would have bombarded her with messages by now.

Speed-dialing Nene's number, Umiko called her. It kept ringing and ringing and the voice mail was about go on when finally someone picked up. But there was only unintelligible nonsense being said. "Sakura-san?"

And finally the words began to make sense. "Don't…. call me that..." A loud yawn was transmitted over the phone. "Is your meeting over?" Nene sounded significantly more awake now, which was still more than half-asleep, given her previous state.

"Yes it is. And I thought I would call you before you went to sleep. It looks like I'm too late." _Why am I lying to her? Am I embarrassed that she didn't start clinging to me over the phone, against my expectations?_

"Ah, you know… I got home and thought; _let's buy that FPS game Umiko recommended_ and I was browsing Zamazon on my laptop on my bed and kinda fell asleep." There was a lot of shuffling on the other side of the line when Nene turned over in bed and pulled the cover closer. Her laptop was thankfully still alive but on the ground.

"Then I won't keep you from sleeping any more than this." Umiko felt a little disappointed but also glad that Nene was not going to be the type to unhealthily cling to her.

"No! Wait!" Nene suddenly shouted into the phone, causing Umiko to pull the phone away from her ear in surprise. "Was the meeting boring? Is the game okay?"

"Very much so, on both accounts." _Now this is the Sakura I know_.

"So you must be super duper sleepy, right? Too sleepy to drive **all** the way to your place?" Nene turned over again, the comforter shuffling making a lot of noise on the other end of the line.

"I do have to go back to my own apartment every now and then, Nene. The release party will start tomorrow at 5 PM, I am going to pick you up at 4:30. Unless you would like to come by train."

"Taking the train instead of getting to see my brown goddess half an hour earlier, what am I, stupid?" Nene could almost hear the embarrassment on the other side. "Are you blushing?"

"Of course not," Umiko responded, with a deep shade of red just around her nose. "Get some rest, Nene. I'll see you tomorrow. Good night."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Nene sounded a bit offended.

 _I covered when I am going to pick her up and wished her a good night. I also told her that the game is fine. What else is there_? _Oh!_ The realization came to Umiko and she held the phone away just far enough to sigh without letting Nene hear. Taking a quick look around, the only people still nearby were occupied with their own phones or other people working at the company. "I love you, Nene."

"I love you too, Umiko!" Nene made a kissing noise and hung up, no doubt going back to sleep seconds later.

 _That was far more embarrassing than I ever thought it could be._ Umiko put away her phone and returned to her cubicle to pick up her jacket. She hadn't been actually home in a while and even though she was going to miss Nene there, she was glad to sleep in her own bed for a change.

 **The next day**

"You think I should have dressed up?" Nene tugged on her shirt. "I could have worn a dress. I do have a dress."

Umiko was glad she had excellent control over her body, managing to keep the car steady despite the snorting laugh that burst out when she imagined Nene in a real dress. "A summer dress just barely counts as a dress, Sakura."

"You're calling me by my last name again!" Nene looked out the window, upset and annoyed.

"And while we are at the release party, I will continue to do so. It's a social event, mostly for company employees. The other debugging personnel was invited but I have heard that few, if any, are planning to attend." They took a right turn and immediately got stuck in traffic. "Tch." Umiko stared so harshly at the car in front of her that Nene was slightly shocked. "I forgot it's the rush hour of 8 to 5 workers." Repeatedly tapping her ring finger against the steering wheel, Umiko impatiently waited for traffic to move.

Nene didn't want to be stuck in traffic pretending to be upset so she turned on the radio, which prompted her to think of a really basic question she hadn't asked Umiko yet. "What kind of music do you like?"

"What?" Umiko had been so focused on being angry at traffic, one of the few things that made her irrationally mad, that she didn't realize what Nene had asked her just now. It clicked when she noticed the radio was on. "I have a rather… eccentric taste."

"Death Metal? Rave? Dubstep? Melodic Rock? Jazz?" Nene listed a bunch of music genres she thought were _eccentric_.

"I do like Jazz. And I do like Heavy Metal and Hard Rock." Umiko found it funny they had never really talked about this before. Favorite music, food, drinks and brand of weapons manufacturer. "What about you?"

"I don't know!" Nene sounded way too happy about that. "I listen to a lot of stuff but mostly, you know, popular stuff. Like KGB48 or the better ones from _My Voice_. The last season of _My Voice_ was terrible. Super bad."

Progressing at a snail's pace, they caught up on some important things. "You're not the type to eat cold beans out of a can when we go to that survival game, right?" Nene had seen that in a few military movies.

"Of course not. That would upset your stomach and most likely negatively impact your performance. They should be at least heated." Umiko could see Nene's shocked face from the corners of her eyes. "Don't worry, we will not eat like infantrymen in the first world war or the American civil war."

"Can't we call for pizza delivery? I like pizza." Nene had some rather simple preferences. "Extra cheese, extra pepperoni and extra garlic. I know the garlic is weird."

"Not at all. I like extra onion and garlic on pizza, too. And I fear pizza delivery doesn't deliver to the Eisenkreuz games' grounds." Umiko managed to relax, to ignore her irrational anger against bad traffic, while she was talking to Nene. "Any drinks you like?"

"Cola. Real Cola, not Pepsi. Pepsi is gross. Super gross. And chocolate milk." Nene paused when she saw the tiniest blush in existence on Umiko's face. "No, I mean **real** chocolate milk!"

"I didn't say anything. I'm so used to energy drinks, water and social drinking events that I don't really have space for a regular, favorite drink."

"It feels like we're just on our first date." A new song came on in the radio. It was one that Nene recognized, despite it being some kind of metal. _Lots of guitars and loud voices and stuff; definitely metal._ "You like that type of music?"

"I do. Yousei Teitokus. Fairy Admirals. Their vocalist has a great voice." Umiko turned the music up just a tiny bit. "Do you mind?"

Nene grabbed Umiko's hand and turned the music up a lot more. Wildly shaking her head and pretending to play a guitar, Nene grinned wide, entertaining Umiko.

And finally, traffic got moving again and so did their car. Nene continued to play air guitar for almost a full minute before both her hands and arms started to feel like lead. "How do guitarists do this?!" Shouting over the song, Nene was glad that she could magic a smile on her girlfriend's face just like that.

"You like war movies, right?" _Dinner, music in a bar, then a movie. Now I know everything!_ Nene didn't really have the money to pay for all that on her own.

"I actually prefer action series. Like TwentyFour. But not watching it all in one marathon. We're almost there. You're not a part-time employee anymore so please behave yourself."

"Only mildly getting drunk, righto!" Nene had every intention of following that decision.

"I am worried about Yagami and Tooyama getting too drunk, **again**. I still remember the news coverage of a few _unidentified_ women being openly drunk in public and a _certain_ girl appearing on the scene with a large weapon." Umiko glanced at Nene, who pretended to whistle and looked away. "Whatever happened to that weapon?"

"They gave it back after they arrested me." Nene wanted to be upset about it but the weapon was still just stuffed beneath her. "Did you ever get arrested for airsoft weapons?"

"No. I make sure to conceal them. Or not carry them with me outside the office, home or the fields. We're here." Parking in the same spot as always, Umiko turned off the engine and pulled her keys. Getting out of the car, Nene right behind her, she hit the automatic lock from a few meters away and waited for Nene to come to her side. "Behave yourself in there."

"You say that like I don't always behave!" Nene, once again, clung to Umiko's arm, the two of them walking together like the couple they were.

They ran across Yagami and Tooyama just in the lobby, Rin frantically fixing up Kou's hair, that just refused to stay down. "Oh, Ahagon! And Sakura." Kou waved to them while Rin only managed a passing glance and a nod.

"Don't call me that." The programer grimaced at her co-worker. "Not in a dress today? Come to think of it, you only were in one that one time for the interview."

"Stop! Wipe that memory from your mind! Forget it, forget it!" Yagami was very sensitive when it came to that topic. Ahagon had teased her quite a bit for the weeks following the release of Fairies Story 3.

 _I really should make her wear a dress for the release parties. At the next one for sure!_ Rin's brief pause from trying to fix Kou's hair didn't go unnoticed.

"I'm not gonna wear a dress, Rin." Kou read the expression of her secret girlfriend with near perfection. Her response was a little sultry and marginally upset.

"Oh, Aocchi spotted!" Nene had still been holding on to Umiko's arm, but now let go and went into a very slow and girly run towards Aoba. "I'll find you in a minute!"

Aoba was talking to Yun, with no sight of Hifumi and Hajime. "Aocchi!"

"Nenecchi." "You came!" The two of them said their hellos to Nene.

"Of course I came! I'm here with my girlfriend!" Nene looked so proud that the other two expected her nose to grow into a giant spike any second now.

"So Umiko-san-" Aoba didn't get very far. Nene grabbed her hands, looking as happy as Aoba had ever seen her. "She said yes."

"Yup! But how could she say no to this beautiful face and my super figure? And I am funny and a good worker and **super** cute!" Nene was so happy to talk to her oldest friend about this.

"Add super modest to that," Yun said mockingly.

"I'm so happy for you, Nenecchi." Aoba smiled back at her friend. "Did you come together?"

"She picked me up." Nene paused. "Do you think I should get a driving license?"

"Umiko-san is never going to let you drive her car." Yun just couldn't see that happen.

The woman in question had just walked over. "Suzukaze-san. Ijima-san." Umiko was as polite as ever to them. " **Sakura-san.** " It had the intended effect. Nene froze up. "I could hear you bragging from all the way over there."

"It isn't bragging when it's the truth!" Nene defended herself.

"Come over here and I will explain to you what exactly bragging means."

Aoba and Yun both expected her to be dragged away by force, by her arm or ear, but the brunette just took Nene's hand and led her away, the short girl following her willingly. That act itself made Aoba and Yun watch with big eyes. "I was skeptical at first, but it looks like they're really together." Yun still almost couldn't believe it.

"They're arguing." Aoba watched the short girl try to stand up to her much taller partner. It looked almost comical. Aoba blushed furiously when Nene suddenly got on her toes, grabbed Umiko's cheeks and kissed her right there, in public.

"If that is how they are arguing I don't think them fighting is suitable for public." Yun's dirty smirk was audible in her words.

Aoba flung around, a shocked expression on her face. "Don't say that!"

The party went on as planned. Hazuki's speech smelled distinctively of improvisation. Nene was watching together with Umiko, both of them supplied with some drinks, albeit Umiko made sure that Nene didn't get anything that had more than a trivial content of alcohol. She was not that eager to see her girlfriend drunk after one day of being together. "It looks like she is just improvising her speech again."

Nene was not really paying that much attention to the speech itself as much as the drink in her hands. Cola with a shot of something else. "Isn't improvising fine?"

"A director shouldn't rely on just her wit and guts." Umiko groaned a little and took a sip of her own drink, which was something a little stronger than what Nene had. She liked the slightly bitter aftertaste of alcohol, the burning sensation as it went down her throat, the fire in her stomach that would spread through her body. _Shots_ , as many people called it, were a staple of survival games that extended long into the frigid nights. The Eisenkreuz games were played during the cold months, which added another tactical element, the cold. Thinking about the games during a release party was somewhat inappropriate but she couldn't really contain her excitement. She was **really** looking forward to it.

"Guts and wits is all I got!" Nene said defiantly. "And a hot and super smart girlfriend," She said a little quieter.

"I appreciate the flattery but you shouldn't sell yourself short." Umiko's smile was like the rising sun for Nene. Beautiful, blinding. Or maybe it was the alcohol that made her see double or strange things.

"Are you praising?" Nene looked at Umiko, a big and fat smile on her face.

"Don't let it go to your head, Sakura-san." The smile immediately turned into a grumpy look and now it was Umiko's time to smile.

"As many of you have noticed, this time we hired a professional company to do our beta testing. Out of those, one specific employee went above and beyond their responsibilities. Honestly, if she clocked up any more overtime than she did, I might be out of a job right now." Hazuki was still not done talking and she earned a big laugh from the audience. "Working closely with our head programmer, she, above all the other debuggers, managed to get rid of some bugs that would have driven our PR department to become frequent flyers at the nearby bar. This might be our most bug free game yet. Our thanks goes out to Sakura Nene-san."

Umiko felt uncomfortable with how smug Nene was looking right next to her. _Hazuki-san really needs to cut back on the praise. It goes to Nene's head too much_.

"Under extraordinary circumstances, our programming team saved us from a catastrophic situation. An applause for them please!" Hazuki spotted the programmers in the crowd and started the first clap.

Feeling a great many eyes on them, Umiko knew that at least **now** people were going to put one and one together regarding her and Nene. At least she assumed so. The applause was brief, but long enough for Umiko's preferences. Hazuki still continued her speech after that, even asking Tooyama and Yagami up front.

Umiko and Nene separated when the speech finally ended. Nene even talked to the other programmers while Umiko enjoyed a moment of peace with just her drink. She remembered the last release party. A dejected Nene, kneeling on the ground as her chance to work at Eaglejump another time just vaporized in front of her, through the programmer's words. _It all started because I couldn't leave her alone. If I didn't start personally overseeing her work, because she kept wandering off, I would never have gotten close enough to her to give her my number. And she would never have… f-fallen in love with me._ Thinking that was embarrassing somehow, even though nobody could hear her. _I gave her my card and if not for that, we would have gone our separate ways._ Thinking about life without Nene made her anxious. Of course they wouldn't be working together for another 18 to 24 months, depending on progress on the game, but they had a life outside of work now.

And it finally hit Umiko just how happy she was to have Nene around. _She's loud, overly energetic, likes to complain a lot, is clingy, lets praise go to her head… but she uprooted her entire life for me. Learned a sport she didn't care about or like. Gave up on college. And she works really hard so I acknowledge her._ Umiko had an embarrassed moment of self-awareness. _She probably works hard because she likes the job. Not for me_.

"So you're that exceptional beta tester the director talked about." Nene was surrounded by three women that worked not exclusively at Eaglejump but were brought on board regularly. She was getting requests for beta testing games at other companies. And Nene thought it was a good opportunity.

"Any FPS games?" Nene wanted to get some experience in those, outside of playing them casually. She couldn't just focus on one side of the genre spectrum.

The three looked at each other for a second. "We are working on a third person cover based shooter." A woman with long red hair made that offer. "A new IP due for release in ten weeks. You could start next week."

"Ah, then I can't. Absolutely impossible. I have plans with my girlfriend." Nene wasn't embarrassed at all about openly saying she was seeing a woman. In a company like this, that happened probably **all** the time.

Nene was handed a card anyway. "Call me if you're ever looking for work. I have my hands in a lot of things."

"Thanks!" Nene pocketed the card and returned to Umiko, who was talking to her programmer co-workers. "I just got a card!" Nene bragged.

"Well, you did great work so that is not surprising." Umiko noticed the smiles on her co-worker's faces. "Don't bloat her ego any more than this, you two."

"My ego isn't bloated at all!" Nene pouted as hard as she could for a few long seconds. "Are we gonna go to the after party?"

"I was not planning to. Do you want to go?" Umiko was not really the type to go social drinking when it could be avoided. But she would accompany Nene if she wanted to go.

Nene was eager to go. The last time had been fun and this time she was going to be with Umiko! "Let's go! We can mess with Tooyama-san after she gets drunk!" Nene earned a scolding look from her partner, followed by a smile. _I knew she'd go for that._

"Keep some of that enthusiasm for when we go to the Eisenkreuz games." Umiko was looking to a few slow days at work, followed by her vacation. It would be the first time she attended the games with a partner. And of all the people she had ever thought of asking to partner up with her for the games, Nene was by far the least suited in terms of experience but the one she wanted by her side the most.

"I got enough enthusiasm to fill a lake." Nene leaned against Umiko, carefully so to not spill either of their drinks. "I can't wait to go camping with you."

Continue?(Insert Coin)

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 **Part 2 of this story won a monthly vote by a narrow margin on . If you would like to see it continued even further, the Insert Coin up above directly refers to your coins.**

 **I am also looking for someone with ample free time, at least good grasp of English and an interest in yuri stuff to act as my beta reader. If you're interested, contact me directly on twitter KuuTenko**


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I am financially quite in a dire situation right now and might lose my home. If you have anything to spare and enjoy these works, please consider giving to pa treon/Kuugenthefox (remove the space)

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"I can still taste the dirt..." Nene started to spit again – on the ground, in the bushes, all in an attempt to get the last bits of dirt out of her teeth.

"Don't do that." Umiko reached for her girlfriend and got rid of some bits of dirt that were stuck in her hair. "I'm surprised you're not complaining about your legs. You ran so much that people started to call you the golden rabbit."

"It's a compliment, right?"

Umiko looked a bit sadistic right there and then. "Considering how bitter they were, a great compliment."

"You're making a really evil face."

"I am allowed to, out here."

"My legs don't hurt that much, but… I am totally sore. I could use like a bath, a massage, then another bath, then pudding, then maybe another massage and-"

"This was only day two, Nene. We won't have to run around as much tomorrow, but it will become harder to advance."

"Why doesn't this game follow the same rules as usual?"

"Complaining about it won't do us any good. Nobody expected them to change the rules for this year. But I guess they want to make it more thrilling and not have the same elite teams crushing newcomers every year."

"Works out for us though!" Nene put her hands behind her head and looked past the crowns of the trees that surrounded them to enjoy the sight of the setting sun. Twigs, leaves and the dirt beneath her boots smelled strongly of the nature – she hadn't been this immersed in the wild ever before, at least not that she could remember. "But everyone here is so tall. It's like I'm in some kind of real life attack on titan."

Umiko, shouldering her assault rifle and pulling out the cartridge to count her remaining ammo, didn't say anything. She had endured countless anime and game references over the last forty-eight hours. Working with Nene and spending a bit of time after work with her was completely different from being around her non-stop for 24 hours a day.

"With all these trees I could totally fly around using 3D maneuver-"

"Nene, I really do like spending time with you, but you need to dial back the anime talk. I don't understand half of what you're saying."

"Eh, you haven't seen that? But it was so popular! Like everyone knows the opening song at least. It goes like this." Starting to, incorrectly, whistle a tune, Nene was not deterred whatsoever by Umiko's request.

"Sakura-san."

That still worked with perfection. The tone of voice, the sharpness of her words – Nene immediately shut her mouth and looked away. "Sorry."

Umiko didn't enjoy doing this anymore. It was nice to tease Nene occasionally, but this was different. Sticking the cartridge back into her gun, still resting it on her shoulder, Umiko put her free arm around her girlfriend's shoulder and pulled her close enough that they nearly fell over each other's feet. "I understand how excited you are. But if you stay in high tension like that, you're going to run out."

"I'm always at super high tension! Although I don't turn purple!"

"I am banning you from dragon quest references."

"Eh, why?!"

"They're the competition."

"Oh come on, they're a totally different type of RPG!"

"Also, I dislike dragon quest seven."

Nene spat again. "I can still feel dirt between my teeth..."

"Bear with it. We'll be at our tent in a few minutes."

"Did we really have to camp all the way at the edge? It takes like two minutes to get to the toilet… and it's super dark at night." Nene was not a big fan of going to the toilet alone – at night – surrounded by people with weapons.

" **Why** do you think we moved there?"

"I wonder what we should get to eat. Did we earn any coupons?" Changing the topic because she didn't want to admit that it was **her** fault that they were all the way out there, over ten meters away from everyone else. _I can't help it! If I feel good, my voices come out!_

"The extracurricular missions today were _Find the Cache_ , _Take the Flag_ and _Eliminate the Third Parties_." Umiko went through her breast pocket, wearing real professional airsoft clothing, and looked at the tags she had collected. "Do you have any cache tags?"

Nene checked the pocket on her butt and pulled out four tags, all four of them flag ones. "No. What do we get for the flag tags?"

"Five minutes of hot water for three tags."

"I got four."

"I got one."

"Aw..." Nene really wanted a **hot** shower. The Eisenkreuz games were a much harsher place than she anticipated.

Food was provided and smuggling in food from the outside was forbidden other than pre-packaged and officially registered rations – which all tasted like wet cardboard that had been dried in the sun. Showers were also cold water only. And to top it all off, only a limited amount of munition could be brought in. All three of those were tied to different extracurricular missions every day to spice up things and make it harder on the richer and bigger teams. More members meant that most of them would only eat basic rations and that it would be difficult to supply everyone with enough munition for the next day.

There was no rule regarding trading tags however and as such, just as evening hit, everyone, including those that had been cut from the competition, met up to trade coupons. Food tags came in the form of a black bear. Shower tags in the form of a bucket. Munition tags in the form of a star.

"I'm going to go back first and look at our stock." Nene handed over all her collected tags to Nene. "You did really well yesterday, so I trust you." A brief and very rare big smile was on Umiko's face as she sent her off. _I wish I could brag to Yagami about how well she is doing. Nene could beat her ass in a 1 vs 1 by now. When we get back I am definitely going to challenge her!_

While tents were left unsupervised during the day, the organizers had put cameras up so if something was stolen it would be immediately obvious who it was. Crawling into her tent, it was not the kind that was big enough to stand in but definitely big enough to kneel and let four people sleep next to each other. There was only **one** very large sleeping bag right in the middle, surrounded by rations, water bottles, some hygiene articles, changes of clothes and packs of munition as well as a few replacement weapons. Umiko's car had struggled to transport all of it in one go and Nene had been surprisingly good at bringing only the bare essentials.

Kneeling in the tent and counting what was left of her munition, she realized she had forgotten to take Nene's handguns. Heavier equipment just didn't suit the short girl who was unbelievably quick on her feet and a real monkey when it came to evading pursuers. _I better don't tell her that it wasn't just the golden rabbit they called her._ Umiko grinned all by herself when she thought of how mad those other players had been. Being tall and able to wield large caliber guns had always been a very strongly sought after factor in survival games. _And now this short girl that's running around with two 8mm guns is driving them insane because she's too hard to hit and she can pass through spots much taller people just get stuck in._

Counting losses, Umiko hoped that Nene didn't trade away all the star tags. They needed to refill on her 8mm handgun bullets and while they were much cheaper than sniper rifle or assault rifle munitions, that didn't mean they were free.

"Umiko!" Nene's head alone poked into the tent. "I got us a big haul!"

Looking a bit worried, Umiko turned around, slowly, because there was no space inside the tent to turn around quickly. "What did you get?"

"It's mapo tofu for food tags today so I couldn't find anyone that was willing to trade them. We had five, so I traded one for two star tags and one for a shower tag! I haggled the guy down from also giving him a star tag for the shower tag! He **really** must want that mapo tofu.."

"So what do we have total?"

"Three food tags, six shower tags and seven star tags."

"Scary."

"What is?"

"Your negotiation skills. I think they're looking down on you because you look so young and then they get caught off guard when you're as shrewd as a lawyer."

Nene's cheeks inflated with the stuffy air from inside the tent. "I can't tell if you're being nice or mean."

"You did a great job."

"Right?"

"Five minutes each is still not a lot, but after crawling around in the wilderness all day, it is going to feel like heaven."

"Ten minutes."

"It's five minutes for three tags and we have six."

Nene's right hand reached into the tent and she moved her index finger back and forth in front of her lips. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. The stalls are big enough for two."

"The rules clearly state that the shower stalls are a pure hygiene zone. No sexual affairs of any kind. Not even masturbating."

"Who said anything about that? You have a dirty mind, Umi-chan."

"Who tha hell ya calling Umi-chan?" Slipping into an accent from her hometown when Nene made her angry was one thing she just couldn't control.

"You're Umiko, so Umi-chan. Or do you wanna be Miko-chan? That 'd be a real hoot because you're **nothing** like a shrine maiden!" Nene escaped outside when Umiko reached for her. "It's not a lot, but we gotta share one mapo tofu. I remember you like spicy food so you can ask for extra spicy if you want."

Umiko was now the one whose head poked out from inside the tent, looking right at Nene, who squatted in front of their temporary home. _She's still cute up close – even with dirt smeared on her face._ "You will not call me Umi-chan."

"Eh, it's like Aocchi. It's cute!"

"I don't like it."

"Stingy."

"I will let you have the mapo tofu if you-" Umiko could not even finish offering the bribe before Nene got on her knees, leaned forward and kissed her in plain sight for everyone to see – everyone that cared to look.

"You're **so** serious. I won't call you that if you really hate it, silly. And I'm not gonna sit there and eat mapo tofu while you gotta eat rations. I'd rather share not eat it at all than eat it alone."

Umiko blushed a little because she wasn't used to being treated like that. "I won't feed you. But… I'm happy you want to share."

"What kinda girlfriend wouldn't share? Geez, you gotta expect more of me, Umi- **chan**." Nene called her that one final time before she jumped on her feet, ignoring her girlfriend's annoyed expression.

"I am doing fairly well with my rifle ammo, but we have almost nothing left for you. You're a bit too trigger happy."

"It's hard to hit people!"

"Of course it is hard to hit these people. They're all doing this a lot."

"Maybe you should have let me take the rifle I wanted."

"You were out of breathing after one kilometer holding that thing. It weighted almost four kilos, without the magazine. And your right arm was all bruised after you tried it out at the shooting range."

"I could have trained."

"I don't want a muscle girl girlfriend."

Nene felt sick at the thought of being all muscly. "Same here..."

Making their way towards the common grounds – which was really just a small number of very big tents to accommodate the participants and some vetted audience. One that housed a temporary kitchen and some benches to eat – eating outside was not an option. Another that housed a large boiler and some temporary shower stalls that offered a modicum of privacy. And the final tent housed the armory, where participants could trade tags, or kill shots, for munitions.

"It stinks." Nene raised up her own arms and sniffed. "Oh."

"Not surprising, after running around all day." Umiko was well aware of how they must smell. She was not nearly as girly as Nene was and while stinking still bothered her, she knew that everyone else smelled no better.

"Shower first?"

"We'll sit on our food tags then. First come, first serve." Umiko grabbed Nene's hand and dragged her towards the food tent. Picking up a metal tray on the way in, Umiko left her girlfriend in line for the real food – not without briefly kissing her on the forehead.

Rations were handed out in small plastic bags and Umiko dreaded having to eat those. "Magic Eagle." The man behind the counter checked his list, made a check mark and handed over a bag of roughly 800 grams of rations with the name _Magic Eagle_ written on it with permanent maker. There were a lot of different sizes bags – they were packed according to team size, age, gender and so forth.

"Umiko!" Nene stood, not sat but stood, on one of the benches and had her arms over her head and still she didn't make for a very good point of visual reference. But Umiko found her in no time flat. Sitting down next to her, the pipping hot mapo tofu made her mouth water. It was the only **real** meal they could get all day. Breakfast and lunch, if a team took the chance to eat rations during the match, were not provided separately but included in the rations handed out every evening.

"I think I am never going to look at food the same way again." Nene enjoyed every spoonful like it was breathing new life into her. She had separated the pieces of tofu in an even number and so essentially split the dish into two. "It's a bit too spicy though..." Nene felt her tongue burn.

 _She had them made it extra spicy despite not liking spicy food._ "You're so cute."

"I know, right?" Eating for a few moments in silence, surrounded by strangers – opponents – the two women were really glad that they had signed up for the contest. It was harsh – on their legs all day, sleeping in a tent, with the bare minimum of comfort. But it was also a lot of fun. "Why am I so cute?"

"You asked them to make it extra spicy, didn't you?"

"Maybe."

"You put up with things you're uncomfortable with for my sake. That's really cute."

"Hehe."

"You know what I meant to begin with, didn't you?"

"Of course! I'm super smart!"

"I would say you're cuter than you are smart."

"So I am super duper cute!"

Umiko had a chuckled. "Yes."

Finishing her side of the dish, Nene wished there was more. "I wish I had pudding."

Umiko had the last piece of tofu on her spoon and decided to not eat it. "Nene."

Briefly distracted by her own thoughts, Nene just absentmindedly turned towards Umiko. And the realization of what she saw hit her like a truck. Smiling so wide that the upper half of her head was seemingly about to pop off, Nene opened her mouth. "Ah~."

Despite telling her that she wouldn't feed her, Umiko did it anyway – out of her share on top of it. Standing up and taking the tray, Umiko waited for Nene to join her, still grinning like an idiot. "You look like you just won the games."

"Nah, that wouldn't make me as happy."

"It wouldn't?"

"I'm here to be with you. It's fun to chase people around and kinda fun to get chased, but I totally wouldn't be here without you." Holding on to her girlfriend's left arm with both hands, Nene was as happy as she had ever been. "And? Are you embarrassed?"

"You read too many love advice columns, Nene."

"I do not!"

"I saw your browser history the other day when I logged into work."

"Ah! Never check my browser history!"

"Discounts on sexy bikinis. And a figure of that tanned girl from the last Final Phantasia?"

"I'm gonna shout so someone shoots me if you keep going!"

"I felt… flattered. I always thought I stuck out in a negative way with my Okinawan skin."

"Seriously? It's super hot."

"Is… that a pun on the climate in Okinawa?"

"Stupid. I really mean you look hot!"

"Actually, since Okinawa is really warm, I am quite cool all year long and-"

"You suck!"

Umiko snickered. "How does it feel to have that game turned around on you?"

"I am not that mean!"

"You can be quite the imp."

"Is that what you picture when you think of me at night? In skimpy leather clothing with little horns and wings and all bondage like?"

"That is a very specific and descriptive example."

"I-I don't think about you that way if you wanna imply that!"

"So you look at figurines of tan girls instead?"

"I can't help it if I started liking tanned beautiful women!"

"Maybe I should have looked into that bookmarks folder that was labeled _Ero_ in English."

"I will break up with you if you look at that!"

"Peachpulsar."

"Gah!"

"The sea, you, and the sun."

"Stop!"

"Tags, dark skin, yuri, tribadism, fingering and-"

Nene sunk to her knees. "Just shoot me."

Umiko was still smiling wide. "I have that in my favorites as well."

Nene's mood immediately changed by a hundred and eighty degrees. "It's great, right?"

"I once met the people behind that circle."

"No way!" Jumping back on her feet, Nene pulled and pushed Nene so hard that the tall girl's hair was flying everywhere. "That's so unfair! How?! When?!"

"I went to the comiket where they sold things and they had a fan that was a little too enthusiastic. So before things became troublesome for the circle, I gently told him to leave."

 _She totally beat up a dude that was getting out of hand and told him to scram._ "I'm jealous."

"I do have hard copies of almost all of their works."

"Almost?"

"I couldn't go to comiket a few times because of work."

"I only found them recently."

"If my schedule lets me we can try and go to the next comiket. Just wearing our uniforms will probably count as cosplay, too."

"Hehe… Aocchi actually let something slip regarding the next game you will be working on. It's still in design phase and stuff but I am definitely positive that the mains will be two girls! One with dark skin like you and one super cute and short and white like snow and adorable-"

"She said the protagonists remind her of us, didn't she?"

"Bingo. You're so smart."

 _I would wonder if you're stupid if I didn't know you so well_. "Don't feel bad about looking at erotic manga." Umiko lowered her voice quite a bit and she was pleasantly surprised when Nene looked embarrassed. _I can't stop thinking how cute she is_. "Especially not if it is peachpulsar."

"Having my girlfriend know what porn I look at is super embarrassing."

"You also know what I look at now."

"That's different!"

"How is it different?"

"You're not the innocent type!"

"And you are?"

"Of course!"

Umiko tried with everything she could. But it was no use. Covering her mouth and laughing so hard that she nearly tripped, Umiko looked at her girlfriend and thoroughly rejected that idea. "If one of us had to be the innocent one, it would be me before you were ever considered."

"Hey!"

"I am not the one that could not keep their hands to themselves despite being told so."

"I was asleep!"

"Of course you were. That means your body knows you're the lewd type."

"Am totally not!"

"Oh? Then you won't mind if we just go straight to sleep after a shower."

Nene puffed up her cheeks so much that she hurt them and started rubbing them. "Ow, ow. ow..."

"Are you okay?"

Looking away, pouting, Nene was genuinely a little upset.

"I'm sorry." Bending down a little, Umiko whispered something to her that got Nene to forgive her right away. _You can be on top tonight_.

Nene had envisioned that showering together would be lewd, naughty and exciting. But in the end it was just cramped, she repeatedly stepped on Umiko's feet and while ten minutes of hot water had been really nice, they both felt strangely tired after. And not exactly turned on. Seeing each other naked was not much of a thrill when they slept in the same sleeping bag.

The tent was still pretty uncomfortably warm because the sun was shining on it for almost two hours right before it set. Sitting outside in the grass, in spare uniforms they kept clean so they had always one clean set of clothes on hand, Nene was using Umiko's lap as a pillow and watched her count munitions.

"We have more than we started out with thanks to your trading skills."

"I'm **so** good at getting good deals."

"Yes. I'm glad that I brought you."

"Just for the trading?"

"No. Just reiteration."

"Praise me more!"

"Your head is going to get so big that you'll get a head-shot from across the field."

"Lies!"

"Who was it that was overly excited and ran off despite my warnings and was then pinned down for twenty minutes in the dirt?"

"Bringing up the past is cheap!"

"That was yesterday."

"Still the past!"

Umiko couldn't help herself but grin. "I suppose so."

"When we're not playing it's kinda boring here."

"Lots of people turn in early to be up early and do some maintenance or get a feel for the weather. Or eat a while before the match so they are done with digestion."

"I knew this was gonna be super serious but I feel like everyone else is taking this way more seriously than me."

"For a lot of them, myself included, it's a contest with our pride on the line. This is only once a year and the position at which we finish will determine if we can answer proudly or with eyes averted. Doing really well might also get some of the companies involved in making our weapons and gear interested in you and give you prototypes or even make you a custom build weapon in exchange for the weapon having their logo on it."

"I didn't know it was so business focused."

"Now you know." Gently poking Nene's nose, Umiko held her arm into the tent. "It's still pretty warm."

"Can't we leave the tent open?"

"We'll be eaten alive by bugs. A few people try that every year and you can always tell who they are because they're covered in bite marks from the bugs. Being this far away from civilization and by a forest, and in this season to top it all off… bugs everywhere. You don't notice them right now because they're all swirling around the bug traps the staff has set up a way behind the big tents so the big tents don't fill up with bugs."

"Oh, they really thought of everything."

"The first few years were a mess. But I wasn't even born then."

"Wow, this contest is ancient then!"

"Sakura-san, what is **that** supposed to mean?"

"Nothing!" Nene raised her hands and covered her face so she wouldn't get forehead flicked or anything. "My mouth moved faster than my mind, that's all!"

"Now, is that so?" Umiko reached for the grass and pinched Nene's butt. "I am sorry, Sakura-san, my hand moves faster than my mind, that is all."

"You bully!"

"Oh?"

Nene rolled off her girlfriend's lap and through the grass and immediately realized she was gonna end up dirty if she was going to run around and what not. "I would raise the white flag but the only white thing I have on me are my panties and-"

"Surrender accepted." Umiko looked worried for a moment. "Please keep your panties where they are."

"I don't understand why they don't let people bring in more clothes."

"Because in real combat you don't even have the luxury of one set of clean clothes, most of the time. The contest tries to be as real as possible without turning away people."

"So I guess they changed the rules of how to play because of that, too?"

"They used to just have small make-shift fences all around the region, making _fields_ for two teams to fight it out but since everyone could bring as much as they had money, the same teams won every time and the competition was losing participants. This is actually the least amount of participants in 10 years at least."

"How do you know?"

"They have some videos on their website about past events."

"You nerd."

"Hey."

"I'm glad I came. This is pretty fun. Not as fun as a new game, though!"

"You can be such a couch potato, Nene."

"Sitting around all day long and playing games is already ingrained into my soul!"

"Do you have any work lined up after this?"

"Uh huh." Nene sat back down next to Umiko and this time just leaned against her. "It's a **big** game. **Way big**. Guess what it is."

"Mass Effect Andromeda."

"Not **that** big! They probably got a whole bunker full of beta testers!"

"Dragon Quest 11."

"You somehow cheated!"

"Your comment about super high tension gave it away."

"Spoilsport!"

"I'm surprised they don't do their beta testing in-house."

"They do, but you know, it's coming out for the 3DS, the new Nintendo console and the PS4! That's a lot of ground to cover."

"I'm not happy about it coming out on PS4."

"Because it's competition?"

"Yes. As a company that also develops primarily RPGs, I don't like them much."

"But Fairies 3 did really well!"

"I am not going to change how I feel about them."

"So you're going to be mad that I work on it?"

"Only if you work on it harder than you did on Sophia's game."

"I'm just a worker ant over there! They don't get the special 1 to 1 Nene service like you do."

Umiko felt relieved and smiled. "Then I'm glad."

"Heh."

"What's so funny?"

"The proud Umiko, all worried I might cheat on Eaglejump with another company and RPG. I can't wait to tell Aocchi about that."

"Say, Nene, did you know there's a few urban legends about this contest?"

"Hm? Nope."

"There is one in particular… rumor has it that every year some people leave early or play zombie during a match and then… they're just gone. They don't show up back home, they don't check out, they just vanish. Their tent remains untouched and some people say that at night they hear some strange kind of cry from inside the forest."

"Come on, pulling my leg like that."

"The strange thing is that **every single year** the same thing happens. Like something is in those woods, hibernating for a year and when we all come in and wake it up, it takes someone. Come to think of it, when I looked at the list of missing people, they were all kinda short. The kind that wouldn't be able to fight off some kind of big beast. Maybe it sneaks up on them from behind, after they let down their guard. Maybe it even comes down to to this camping spot and-" Just as she was about to finish her words, Umiko heavily tugged on the back of Nene's uniform, pulling her back.

Nene fell backwards and looked at Umiko. "I'm not five, you know!"

"I was very sure you would reaction like an anime character."

"Geez, you're terrible at making up scary stories! If people went missing here they'd have this game shut down in no time flat!"

"You are no fun."

"I'm a lot of fun!"

"Not when it comes to scary stories."

"You know, **if** there was some scary thing eating people, it would probably look like that grass covered dog over there."

"A what?" Umiko looked over her shoulder and couldn't spot anything. "They don't allow animals on the grounds."

"Over there, between the two blue tents. You know, the ones with the grizzly men that I traded a food tag with yesterday."

"I can't see it."

"Look at the grass. It's there. You can see a bunch of grass moving about. Geez, no wonder you always overlook some bugs!"

Umiko would not let that slide and she focused as hard as she could. _I know she is just pulling my leg, but if there really is a dog or a raccoon or something I have to report it._

"You **still** can't see it?"

"You're just making fun of me, aren't you?" Umiko turned back around and what she looked at made her freeze. A big slab of grass wiggling right in her face, making horrible barking and snorting noises. "Sakura-san. What have you done to the lawn?"

Continuing the barking and snorting for a few more seconds, the mass of grass was hit in the head and then dropped to the ground. "Ow! Domestic violence is a crime, you know!"

"Sakura, you can't just cut out pieces of the lawn."

"It'll grow back!"

"You still can't."

"Boo!"

"No."

Having cut out a piece of the wild lawn with a knife, in a hurry, Nene tried to stuff the piece of earth back where it belonged but it was mostly fallen apart by now. "Uh… what now?"

"You're on camera already. I think they'll at most give you a warning, if they decide it's necessary. So please no more cutting up the lawn."

Nene nodded and suddenly felt bad. "I thought I'd scare you."

"I'm not mad at you. Last year I broke someone's nose for playing zombie and shooting me as a zombie."

"You punched someone in the face?"

Umiko breathed in long and deep. "I am not proud of that."

"I wish I could 'a seen that!"

Umiko felt a little better, seeing Nene so excited over that. "It did make a satisfying crunching sound."

"You're like a hot tan lady terminator!"

Umiko put on her best scary smile. "Is that perhaps a comment about my weight? Terminators weight hundreds of kilos."

"I totally didn't mean that!"

"Did you now?"

"I swear!"

Nene leaned to the side and kissed Nene's forehead. "Of course I know you didn't."

"Bully."

"After my vacation is up and we have to go back to work… are you going to be working on weekends?"

"I probably would at Eaglejump but no way am I gonna put in overtime somewhere else. I get paid peanuts or nothing for overtime!"

"Are you making an okay living with beta testing work?"

"So-so. I definitely can't afford a car or a fancy vacation though. But I can buy new games or clothes no problem."

 _If we're still together by the time I hire her for Fairies 4… and she does good work, I think I might ask her to move in with me. It does feel like I won't meet someone that suits me so well again_.

Nene poked Umiko's forehead. "What'cha deep in thought for?"

"I was thinking that you will have to go all the way to Shinjuku for your next job."

Nene looked tired already. "Getting up at 6 in the morning… it's like I am back in school."

"You probably shouldn't tell anyone there that you're dating a programmer from Eaglejump. We're not a huge company compared to Square Enix but they probably still see it as a conflict of interest or that you could leak confidential information to me."

"I didn't think about that at all."

"Would be silly if you get fired for something like that."

"They wouldn't do that. Right?"

"They would."

"Wow."

"Companies can be really strict. They will definitely make you sign a NDA too."

"Can we talk about something else?" Nene leaned back against Umiko. "I don't wanna go to sleep thinking about contracts 'n stuff."

"You're thinking of going to sleep? Not just to bed?"

Nene blushed, unintentionally. "And you say I'm the lewd one!"

"I do find myself quite attracted to short girls as of late. I wonder why."

"Just short girls?"

"Short girls with blonde hair."

"And?"

"Big breasts?"

" **And**?"

"A cute face."

"Hmm?"

"A very cute face."

"Hehe, must be because of me then!"

"I also seem to be very attracted to girls that are very full of themselves."

"You're cheating on me?!"

Bonking Nene on the head, Umiko felt the inside of the tent again. "It has cooled down quite a bit. It'll take hours for it to become actually comfortable and we definitely need to rest more than four or six hours."

"You're not gonna ask me what kind of woman I'm attracted to?" Nene felt a bit disappointed.

"I have a feeling that whatever I am going to ask, there will be a cheesy answer waiting for me."

"Bee!" Sticking out her tongue, Nene started to pout. "I guess I like the stingy, stubborn exotic beauty that really likes being a spoilsport!"

"I guess I can live with that." Crawling into the tent, with her boots still on, Umiko took them off and left them next to the entrance. Leaving them outside was just asking for the morning dew to make them all cold and uncomfortable.

Nene followed suit a few seconds after the Okinawan had taken off her boots and trousers. Wearing trousers in general had been a new experience for Nene; skirts just were not a permitted option in these games. Despite being very excited to share a sleeping bag with Umiko, Nene had fallen asleep within minutes after the first day.

Umiko wore extremely plain black panties and an equally plain black sports bra. Nene had objected to this strongly. A girl; a woman, had to dress like one at all times. But after pointing out just how much her breasts would hurt running and jumping around all day in a forest, Nene conceded quickly. She wasn't big on pain. Neither of them wore anything but underwear under their camouflage uniform. It was unnecessary baggage and it was hot enough already to begin with.

"I still don't like wearing this..." Nene tugged on the sports bra she wore – that Umiko had **insisted** on she wore, and frowned. It provided a lot of hold but it made her actually look more childish.

"You would be groaning with pain if you didn't."

"Is there no… stylish option?"

"Do you want to look stylish for me?"

"Of course I do!"

"That's cute of you."

"We could at least wear something better when we go to bed!"

"Even though mine would barely stay on for one minute, just like yesterday?"

"It was totally more than a minute!" Complaining while she undressed, Nene pulled the sleeping bag over herself as she crawled up next to Umiko. It was far too big, even for the two of them. They could have fit Aoba and Hifumi in there with them and still not feel too squeezed. Umiko had ordered the absolutely largest one they could find, on Nene's insistence.

Nene was completely covered by the sleeping bag while Umiko was tall enough, or rather – had moved up far enough, to have her head poke out of the hole that was specifically designed for that. Nene scurried around like a cat beneath covers within the confines of their much too large temporary bed. Emerging like a diver from a deep sea dive, Nene looked excited. "Guess what?"

"You took off your clothes."

"You have **got** to be cheating at these somehow." Nene looked suspicious.

"It is not my fault you are so adorably easy to read, Nene." Sliding one arm over and another beneath Nene, Umiko was surprised when she was promptly forced on her back. _She's stronger than she looks._

Lying on top of the dark haired girl, Nene realized that being so much shorter than her made a position like this kind of awkward. And the tent was not high enough to do a kinda cowgirl position. Not to mention that they had no toys with them. _I'm kinda no good with my fingers. And come to think of it… I was never actually on top before!_

"What's wrong? You can't decide how to start? Or have you lost your passion after that little grass monster gag going awry?"

"Did not!" Using Umiko's shoulders to pull herself a little closer to her girlfriend's face, Nene didn't account for how much pressure she was exerting. Rubbing against Umiko with so much force, both of them let out a strange sound as sensitive spots connected and reacted. And much like they shared the strange sound they shared the way they looked at each other with excitement clearly written on their faces.

This wasn't their first time – that had been over at Nene's place after a particularly exhausting evening and some alcohol on Umiko's side to loosen the inhibitions she still held. But since then they had only done it twice more.

Nene overreached and put both her hands on Umiko's throat, just below her chin, to keep her still while she put her passion to work – her own lips, lead by curiosity and unbridled passion, met with Umiko's, which were like unmoving gates of a fortress for a few short seconds before she responded with a much more clearly directed passion of her own.

Losing her spot on top after just a few seconds of kissing, because it was far too uncomfortable to stay there, Nene was now by Umiko's side, naked inside the sleeping bag, and while she kept the much taller girl busy with just here lips and nothing else, she tugged, pulled and shifted her girlfriend's underwear.

No matter how many times she tried, Umiko almost lost when it came to kissing – surprisingly both in technique and stamina. Panting, her chest rising noticeably beneath the cover, there was a dark blush on her face – and without giving her pause, Nene vanished below the covers and Umiko could hardly reach for the bag's rim in time before a thrilling sensation hit her chest.

Even within tents, the contest had a policy that participants could not be so loud that they disturbed other people. Umiko let go of the rim, covered her mouth and just barely suppressed a heavy combination of moan and gasp. Nene was a little crude in her approach but Umiko absolutely loved that. She was not the type to get off on pretty caressing or moving fingers over each other's skin. Throwing her head back, into the bag of clothes that was resting beneath the headpiece of the sleeping bag, Umiko was sure she had just felt Nene's teeth on her nipple.

Nene herself was more into _wild_ sex than _rough_ , but those two coincided a lot in bed. Crawling back on top of Umiko, Nene's head, her forehead covered in sweat already, popped out from the bag again, playfully biting into Umiko's shoulder. She didn't have a really good grip on what her girlfriend liked but _rough_ , as Umiko had explained, was basically being a bit mean. And she could definitely do that!

Rubbing her shin between Umiko's legs for a little bit, Nene let her full body weight push her down on her partner, without supporting herself on the ground at all. And within seconds after that, the two rolled left and right in the sleeping bag, Umiko holding on tight to Nene, both of them fighting for superiority – to be on top. For Umiko this was just a farce, she gave Nene what she wanted. A wild experience.

Struggling side by side, Nene bit into Umiko's lower lip and pulled on it a little too hard and Umiko flinched. "Sorry. Was that too hard?"

"A little." Umiko licked the inside of her mouth and could taste blood. _If I show her that, she's going to freak out._ Licking her lips as lewdly as she could, Umiko grabbed Nene by her hair and shoved her inside the bag. "As punishment you'll-" Umiko's words, and breath, got lost along the way when Nene just continued full steam, not bothered in the least that she had slipped up just now. Biting, pinching and pulling on Umiko's breasts, the tanned girl retaliated purely on instinct. She didn't have enough composure left to really _think_ about what to do; not anymore. Two of her nimble fingers vanished between Nene's legs in an instant.

Umiko could hear her moaning over her own noises and more so; through the sleeping bag. "Such a lewd girl. You should be testing R18 games instead."

Nene popped out of the sleeping bag again and Umiko lost track of where exactly her hips were. "Says the maso programmer."

"I enjoy a bit of force, not pain. Like so." Putting her arms around Nene's back instead, Umiko held on so tight that the breasts of both girls were pressed against each other so hard that they were flattened. Nene struggled against her, but at the end of the day, Umiko was just stronger.

Rolling over again, Nene was the bottom now and now there was no escape. Umiko had her pinned down, the two of them panting heavily – they had completely forgotten about the rule to not disturb other people. Her sports bra shoved so far up that was almost a scarf now, her panties lost somewhere around her right ankle and still Umiko didn't care. She showered with Nene, there was nothing to be embarrassed of now.

Biting Umiko's lip again the second she came close enough for a kiss, Nene felt the dark skinned girl shiver from top to bottom. _She really likes that_. Nibbling, almost playfully chewing, on Umiko's lip, Nene was glad that she had stopped a mere second before she felt something enter her her between her legs.

Their tug of war continued for several more minutes before Nene felt a massive bolt of electricity surge through her – Umiko had found her most pleasurable spot by complete accident and hit it really hard. Shaking and aching, Nene came while she was lying on top of Umiko, squirting all over her partner's stomach. "Uh… sorry…"

Licking her fingers, the very same that had just caused Nene to come, Umiko smirked. "I win."

"This was only round 1!" Nene felt a little weak in the knees but she wasn't going to let Umiko lord this over her tomorrow.

Before they could continue, someone knocked against the tent from outside. "Look, I can sympathize and stuff, but keep it down, okay? I'm not gonna call staff or anything, just dial it down a notch."

Umiko and Nene looked at each other for a long few seconds as they heard someone walk away. Then they picked up on where they had left off; adding non-stop kissing to their activities so their voices wouldn't leak out as much.

=== Chocolate & Vanilla ===

"Ah geez! I can't believe we lost!" Nene complained loudly as she stuffed her belongings into her big bag. "And we were so close, too!"

"Making it to the last day is pretty impressive for just the two of us." Umiko had already packed and was waiting for Nene to finish up so she could put the tent together. "I hope losing didn't make you regret coming here."

"I only lost the stupid game. I'm still the biggest winner here because I got to go home with you!"

"You want to come back here next year and have your revenge?"

"Yep! I mean, if you're taking me!"

"Who else would?"

"How rude! I bet I am like, super wanted on any team because I gave everyone a massive headache." Dragging her bag out of the tent, Nene looked down on herself. "What am I gonna do with these clothes though?"

"Wear them when we go to a game." Umiko started folding up the tent. "Can you get the tent bag?"

With no answer, Nene just did as Umiko asked. "I think I am good for a little while though. I wanna get through some games I've been hoarding!"

"Do you want me to come over to play?"

"You would?"

"Playing survival games alone, after this… it wouldn't be the same." Umiko felt a little disappointed with herself now. Was that all her love for survival games amounted to? Something that was overshadowed immediately by her love for Nene? _I suppose that's fine. Survival games are my hobby, my obsession – but Nene is more than just my obsession. That I didn't even stop to consider who is more important to me – that I immediately knew it was Nene… that just tells me that there is nothing wrong with feeling this way; that it is okay for her to have taken the top spot._

Nene jumped on Umiko's back. "What'cha so deep in thought for?"

"I was just thinking how you need a lot more training so we can win next year."

"I'll bite you again!"

"You left a mark. I can still feel it."

"You liked it."

"I liked it when you were a bit rough. But you bit me hard enough to leave a mark that is still there after four days."

"Sorry."

"I'm not mad at you."

"Still! Sorry."

"You could apologize by getting off of me so I can finish putting our tent away."

"Yep." Doing as she was asked, Nene stood by and watched Umiko. "I got carried away with the biting."

"I never knew you were the type that is hung up on her mistakes."

"I'm not!" Nene kicked her feet on the green and looked mildly annoyed with herself. She messed up a lot, lots of little things. But biting Umiko hard enough to make her flinch so hard that she was thrown off – that was a fuck up so big that she still felt bad.

"Nene, sit on that for a moment."

Sitting down, cross-legged, on the tent, Nene turned with Umiko and watched her pull the zippers close. "I didn't know they had tents like this. It's super handy."

"I would have normally used the old tent I had. It's a second-hand army tent that was barely used. But it's smaller than this and I didn't want you to be uncomfortable."

"Marry me."

"In a few years. Maybe." Umiko grinned and she found herself doing that a lot lately. Much, much more than she ever did without Nene in her life. "Grab your bag, we're done."

"Roger!"

Umiko and Nene didn't care to stay for the final results. A handful of teams, at most, were still fighting it out and Umiko had explained that they were all veteran teams. Nene didn't care about other teams to begin with and she really wanted a long, nice bath. Getting in Umiko's car, Nene felt exhaustion hit her like a steamroller.

 _I'm not gonna fall asleep!_ Just as she thought that, Nene yawned so loudly that it drowned out the starting engine of the car. "Home we go!"

" **I** am going home. You are going to be freeloading at your girlfriend's place." Umiko still liked to poke fun at Nene.

"Mean with a capital M!"

Driving back onto the road from the dirt parking lot, Umiko held on to the wheel with one hand and grabbed Nene's with her other. "This was the most fun I ever had."

"There you go again."

"I am not exaggerating."

Nene suddenly felt out of her depth. **She** was the honest one, the one that always spoke her mind and pried her feelings from the depths of her heart. "This is unfair."

"What is?"

"Being all touchy-feely with me!"

Umiko squeezed Nene's hand. "Don't be cruel. It's not easy for me to tell you how I feel."

"But..." Nene looked out the window. "I know how you feel. You don't have to put it in words, you know? I can tell from the way you smile and laugh. You bend over backwards to fit me into your life. And how things have changed between back when we first met and now. It was just _Sakura-san_ constantly in that negative tone and now it's always _Nene_ with that happy tone and a smile to go with it. I tell you how I feel because I'm kinda… you know."

"A whirlwind of emotion?"

"Hm." Nene stopped looking out of the window and turned right towards Umiko. "I don't look the part but I'm good at telling how people feel! I could tell how Aocchi feels about Hifumin, too."

"Even if I don't **have** to say it, I wanted to."

"I don't know how to react to that."

"That's fine. In fact, it is kinda cute how honest and lost you are when I say it."

"You're bullying me again!"

The car slowed down and finally came to a full stop. Umiko leaned to the side and pulled Nene by her hand, the two of them sharing a brief kiss, an escape from the reality around them. The setting sun was shining red and fiery through the window, throwing shadows on their faces as the two opened their eyes and looking at each other up close.

=== Chocolate & Vanilla ===

It had been six weeks since the unending grind of work and responsibility had returned them to their normal, mundane lives. Or at the very least what passed as such for two women like them. Nene didn't flinch, or even pay attention, to the rattling of the lock being turned. There was only one person that had a key to her flat and that person was always welcome, at any time of day or night. Hearing the door shut after being opened, Nene hit pause and looked up. "Umi-chan!"

The dark skinned programmer stood there at the entrance, taking off her shoes, holding two different bags. One was the very same one she always brought to work and the other was unmistakably just from a convenience store. "No pudding for you."

"I take it back, I take it back!" Leaping to her feet, Nene ran over to her guest. "I thought you were going to work overtime tonight?"

"Someone covered for me." Umiko left her shoes and walked past Nene, quickly taking the frozen goods to the fridge. "Because today is a special day."

"Huh? I am pretty darn good about dates and stuff! I know it's not your birthday and it isn't my birthday and we're still way off from having the anniversary of going out."

"I checked because I was not sure but today was the day you came to Eaglejump."

"It's like I'm a Shoujo-novel." Grabbing her partner's arm, Nene pulled her in. She still had to stand on her toes to kiss her when they both stood next to each other, and she was positively awful with high heels, but she didn't mind, not anymore.

"So I shouldn't have brought pudding?"

"Pudding is always welcome!" Nene opened the fridge and Umiko bonked her on the head with not a moment to spare. "Hey!"

"That is desert. What about dinner?"

"But I wanna have pudding for dinner, too!"

"Denied." Umiko shoved the fridge close, not without spotting that there were six brand new cans of the alcoholic soft drink she had recently come to enjoy. Going through Nene's cupboard in expert fashion, knowing where everything was without having to ask or look, Umiko put everything together to make fried rice. She wasn't a great cook, not by any metric, but she was getting better, little by little. "How is work?"

"A drag." Nene was completely blunt over how she felt about the game she was testing. "I really wanna quit but then everyone will say I'm just lazy and picky and what not."

"What's so bad about it?" Turning on the small stove, Umiko put her hair quickly into a ponytail. She avoided doing that most of the time because Nene liked that look a little too much and would never simmer down, no matter how sharp her _Sakura-san_ got.

"That's the thing; nothing. It's just kind of really bland and recycled. I don't like FPS that much to begin with and this game is not… it's not **bad**. But it's also not **good**. It's almost offensive how inoffensive it is."

"It's the upcoming world war two entry in the Call of Duty series, right?"

"Bullseye." Nene paused and then giggled. "Oh, get it? Because-"

"Don't pretend you made that pun on purpose." Raising her voice to reach Nene over the sizzling of the oil in the frying pan, Umiko briefly stepped away and took a look at Nene's beta version. "I see they still have that good old bug where everything about a soldier is invisible but the teeth and the eyes."

"I don't get how that's still a thing." Nene picked up the controller. "I played through this section probably like fifty times already and I still can't reliably cause it to happen."

"A game beyond the understanding of Sakura Nene." Umiko smiled a little and returned to the stove. "Is the pay good?"

"So-so. I made a lot more testing for Square."

"Even though it's Activision?"

"Nah, the beta testing is actually handled by the developers for some reason and their budget didn't give them a lot of leeway. I mean, they didn't even have the space to let us come in and test on-site."

"I'm glad. I wouldn't want you to be stolen by another company. Food's gonna be ready in a few minutes. Can you get some dishes and spoons?"

"Without you I'd just eat pudding all day."

"You'd be perfectly square then."

"Wow, that's mean! I'm not that short! And my enormous brain eats up all those calories anyway!"

"Enormous, hm? Your confidence certainly is."

Nene walked past Umiko and then stood next to her. She didn't even have to say anything to communicate. Umiko took a step to the side and let Nene open the cupboard and take out two dishes. "Are you staying the night?"

"Do I ever not when I come over?"

"I'm irresistible so of course you always stay." Carrying the dishes to the low table next to her bed, Nene realized she had forgotten the spoons. "How is work for you?"

"A lot of stress. It's different to the last minutes changes we had with Sophia's game. We switched engines so we have to create a lot of stuff from scratch. That friend of yours in the animation team is struggling to get used to the new routines."

"Hajime?"

"Yes, her."

"She'll be fine." Grabbing spoons from the cupboard next to where the dishes were, Nene felt her mouth water. "Maybe fried rice is almost as good as pudding."

"You say that every time. But what is it with your obsession over pudding lately?"

"It's the fault of that RPG I played after we got back from the Eisenkreuz games."

"You really are influenced so easily." Turning off the stove, Umiko didn't have to say much. "Nene."

"Two orders of fried rice, coming right up!"

"You're the one eating, though. I made it."

"Don't be stingy!"

"Stingy? Well, I suppose these are your ingredient- wait a second, didn't I bring the onions **and** the rice with me on the weekend?" Despite their playful bickering, Umiko scooped up the rice with excellence and divided it neatly into two portions. She was a lot taller than Nene, but Nene's stomach was as big as her mouth was.

Talking with her mouth full, Nene didn't wait to sit back down at the table to eat. "Hm? I guess?" Heading to the table, closely followed by her girlfriend, Nene sat down and happily ignored the game on pause.

"You're so carefree." Umiko couldn't hold it against her.

"Say, when is Eaglejump gonna hire testers for the next game?"

"In two months, but I'm not on that project."

"I could come over!"

"Why do I have this strange feeling of deja vu?"

"I dunno."

"Nene… you did the exact same thing with Suzukaze when you first worked at Eaglejump. That's why I had to relocate you to keep an eye on you."

"Oh. Yeah."

"That's all? You're not going to deny you did that or tell me you wouldn't abandon your post to come see me?"

"Definitely did and definitely would." Stuffed her mouth until she resembled a starved hamster, Nene jumped up and ran to the fridge. Not to get pudding, not yet, but something to drink. Saying completely unintelligible things, she held a bottle of water in hand and kept the fridge open.

"Sure. And thank you for buying them."

More unintelligible nonsense followed and Nene brought with her a can of the soft drink that Umiko liked. Emptying half the bottle in one go, Nene gasped in relief and joy. "That was really good." Showing Umiko one thumbs up, Nene reconsidered and made it two. "Five stars!"

"So one thumbs up is two and a half stars? That sure gives me a new perspective on game reviews."

"Don't tell anyone. It's a secret to everyone."

"I recognize that quote."

Nene put her index finger to her lips. "Ssh. Don't tell anyone. It's-"

"Are you done with work for today?"

Reality caught back up with Nene and she felt the wind taken from her sails. "I really ought to at least find a way to trigger that bug all the time. But eh…" Crawling around the corner of the table, Nene threw herself flat on Umiko's lap, lying there. "I wanna spend time with you instead."

"I won't be good for much. You probably think I still look pretty fit, but the moment I close my eyes I am going to fall asleep."

"Aw." Nene turned over and looked up at Umiko. "We can turn in early if you want."

"With your work unfinished?"

"They didn't fix that bug across like five games. They probably don't care anymore."

"That's not very professional of you."

"My job as your girlfriend comes first!"

"I can't argue with that." Poking Nene's nose, Umiko smiled over how cute she was. "You actually managed to eat without getting any on your face, I'm impressed."

"Boo. This is a Nene bully free zone."

"It's a compliment."

Both of them started to chuckle at the same time because of how silly their conversation had turned. Nene rolled off her partner's lap and proceeded to grab the empty dishes before taking them to the sink. "You've been coming over way more than I go to your place."

"Does that bother you?"

"You have a car and I don't, so not really. But you always take your clothes back home! You didn't even notice I cleaned out part of my closet for you!"

 _She's so cute._ "You want me to keep clothes at your place?"

"Yeah! That's what couples do, right?"

"I'll bring some next time." Standing up, and sneaking up behind Nene, Umiko bend over so far that she could put the girl within her embrace. "No strange doings with my clothes."

"As if I'd do that. Stupid dark elf."

"I am not going to cosplay Pirotess."

"Crud."

"You **really** are influenced easily." Umiko couldn't help herself but let out a yawn. "Sorry. It looks like I'm more tired than I thought."

"I wish I could come to work with you tomorrow. Instead I'm stuck here playing Blandus McShooter World War two edition."

"Think of it as image training for survival games."

"Survival games where convenient cover is everywhere, everything constantly explodes, one person mows down hundreds of people, heals away bullets like they are cotton candy and-"

Covering Nene's mouth, Umiko instantly got her to shut up. "You'll hate playing it even more if you keep thinking about it like that."

"If I could hate it, that'd be something! It's like playing stale soup simulator."

"Someday that is going to exist. Most likely somewhere in the west, on that PC games platform."

"With 6 million yen of DLC!"

"So many soup variants."

Both of them laughed again and Umiko finally separated from Nene, just as she felt a second yawn come on. Heading for the small bathroom, Umiko was pleasantly surprised to find a second brush, a slick mahogany color. _She even bought a brush for me. She's just like when we started going out. Pushy and definitely rushing into things._ Brushing her teeth, and walking out of the bath while she was at it, she saw Nene turn off the console. "Done?"

"I don't wanna ruin my night with you."

Finishing up preparations to go to sleep, something she usually skipped through at her own place, Umiko stripped on her way to Nene's bed and left her clothes simply on the floor. Nene was surprisingly clean and neat with her place, so she could just do that. Crawling into bed while Nene was in the bathroom, Umiko almost immediately felt overwhelmed by the pillow smelling so much like Nene. _It's kinda… sweet._

When Nene almost jumped into bed, she found Umiko sound asleep, breathing lightly and peacefully, clutching the pillow from below. She still had her hair in a ponytail and Nene carefully reached over her and pulled the hair tie out. Lying down next to her girlfriend, Nene didn't attempt to do anything to her. No clingy hugging, no kissing. She just let her sleep. And soon enough, she too was sound asleep.

=== Save data for NG+? ===

* * *

Ending Note: I feel that unless there is some extraordinary demand for more of this storyline specifically, it could stand easily on its own and be finished. Even if there is more demand of Umiko x Nene, I feel a new storyline might work better.


End file.
